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Lee Alexander McQueen & Ann Ray: Rendez-Vous (Touring)

Start Date 30 May 2024
End Date 25 August 2024
Venue Frist Art Museum
Location Nashville, Tennessee, USA
Curator Jessica Baran and Kelly Peck
Designer Nic Cherry, Kelly Peck, and Kasper Woldtvedt
A female mannequin wearing a long black dress with gold embellishments. to the right off the image our a collection of more female mannequins wearing colourful dresses in hues of white, orange, blue and green.
Female mannequin wearing McQueen's iconic red and black tartan skirt paired with a white skirt.
A female mannequin skirt suit all in white.
A display of 4 mannequins; right side a female mannequin wears a black trench coat, middle mannequin wears a black jacket, next mannequin is wearing a black and red piece. Lastly, the mannequin to the far left is wearing a beige top and skirt.
Two female mannequins; left is wearing a lace black dress and the right is wearing a white two piece with red dots.

Lee Alexander McQueen (1969–2010) redefined contemporary fashion with his extraordinary ability to blend exquisite craftsmanship with imaginative storytelling. Mythologized in his own lifetime, the press promoted him variously as fashion’s enfant terrible (terrible child), a troubled genius, and one of the era’s most visionary designers, yet there were few who truly knew him.

Lee Alexander McQueen & Ann Ray: Rendez-Vous offers a rare glimpse into the life and mind of McQueen and introduces French photographer Ann Ray (b. 1969) to audiences in the United States. With a partnership built on friendship and trust, Ray was provided unfettered access to McQueen’s world and captured everything from contemplative moments in the design studio to models posing backstage. In total, she shot forty-three collections over the course of thirteen years, creating a massive body of work and an indelible record of McQueen’s creative process at his namesake label and during his tenure as creative director at Givenchy.

This exhibition features 65 captivating photographs hand-selected by Ray herself from her archive of over 32,000 negatives and more than 60 dress objects spanning the entirety of McQueen’s career, all of which are sourced from the world’s largest private collection of McQueen’s works. Both thorough and emotional, Rendez-Vous offers the unique opportunity to re-evaluate the life and legacy of a beloved but widely misunderstood figure and to disentangle the person from the persona.

Images courtesy of Barrett Barrera Projects and Lee Alexander McQueen & Ann Ray: Rendez-Vous exhibition.