A modest life: Sara Berman’s closet
Aside from the hoo-ha of the Comme exhibition Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garçons: Art of the In-Between (which of course must be seen), New Yorkers should also check out Sara Berman’s Closet also at The Met.
Sara Berman was an immigrant who travelled from Belarus to Palestine to the Bronx in New York, before ending up in Greenwich Village. Here, post-divorce after 38 years of marriage, she cultivated a modest life in which all her clothes were shades of white, cream and ecru. Her closet was ordered and minimalist, not out of fanciful aspiration to Comme-like conceptualism, but out of humble necessity.
Ten years after she passed away, her curator grandson, Alex Kalman decided to recreate her closet as an installation at his Mmuseumm in Lower Manhattan. For him, its mundane orderliness represented humanity and beauty. Amelia Peck, a curator from the Met saw it and now Sara Berman’s Closet can be seen there (juxtaposed with exhibits of a much more extravagant lifestyle) until September 5th 2017.
Watch this fascinating short film for more…
WORDS: Disneyrollergirl/Navaz Batliwalla
IMAGES: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York Times
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9 May, 2017 @ 5:24 pm
Another reason to go to New York..
9 May, 2017 @ 6:03 pm
If she wore Chanel no. 19, she’s alright with me.
10 May, 2017 @ 3:38 pm
Thanks for this. I’ll check it out.
11 May, 2017 @ 6:39 pm
What a beautiful and touching short film! As a daughter of immigrants from Europe I witnessed and appreciated the care of each precious item and the absence of unnecessary excess.
14 May, 2017 @ 10:31 pm
It certainly makes you think about what we really need…