Cultural critics poured scorn on Tuesday on decisions by two major London museums to devote shows to celebrities Kylie Minogue and Kate Moss, charging they were chasing crowds, not quality.
The Victoria and Albert Museum’s Kylie: The Exhibition opens on Thursday, the week before Face of Fashion at the National Portrait Gallery, which features fashion shoots of Moss, Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie and Sting.
Both shows are expected to be among the capital’s biggest draws this year, but have provoked claims that state-subsidised museums are dumbing down in the face of government pressure to increase visitor numbers.
Stephen Bayley, a cultural commentator who set up London’s Design Museum and has worked at the V&A, said he fears the exhibitions are ”a capitulation to the cult of celebrity”.
”You can make excellent things popular, but it’s not the same as saying popular things are excellent,” he said.
Bayley also described as ”ruinous” government policies that he said ”reward number chasing” and took issue with a reported comment by one of the V&A’s trustees that it should not be a place for elitism.
”She’s very, very seriously wrong — it’s exactly the V&A’s place to be elitist,” Bayley said.
The Kylie show, which reporters got a sneak preview of Tuesday, features a series of the Australian star’s designer costumes modelled by mannequins that emphasise her famous bottom, as well as a mock-up of her dressing room.
Victoria Broackes, the V&A’s head of exhibitions for the performing arts, said that the show covers fashion, design and performing arts, and works ”completely on its own merits”.
”The exhibition itself is free, so whilst there will be thousands and thousands of visitors, the museum will benefit from extending its audience rather than financially,” she added. — Sapa-AFP