Regardless of what Anna Wintour wants, if the donors withdraw their money there is absolutely nothing she can do. She’s been pushing for this John Galliano exhibition for years but I guess she didn’t expect the pushback when it was finally put through.
This is the exact kind of censorship campaign that makes us all look bad. Galliano made his antisemitic remarks 15 years ago when he was doing over a dozen fashion shows a year, drinking like a fish, snorting coke with the reckless abandon of an aardvark, and starving himself to stay as skinny as his models. He was fucked up, made a terrible mistake, and eventually made great effort to repair his relationship with prominent Jews. He then went on to achieve a highly successful second act as the successor of Martin Margiela at the Belgian genius’ namesake brand for a decade.
Galliano is arguably the most important fashion designer since the 1990s, barring maybe McQueen, Margiela and Prada, there isn’t really anyone else who has been so influential in that world. His work absolutely deserves to be celebrated and historicized with the kind of platform the Met can lend him.
Censoring artists is always a fools’ errand. Their personal viewpoints, especially in something as neutral as making clothes, stand outside their work, which is judged with an aesthetic and formal criteria. Even if Galliano was a committed antisemite, which I doubt, he’s only ever made one egregious comment while caught during a moment of drunken belligerence and rage. He apologized profusely, and it came off as sincere enough that the industry forgave him (although, his status as a bonafide billion dollar earner certainly facilitated the industry’s forgiveness, of course.)
We’re living in a moment when one of the major political parties is uplifting candidates with pro terror sympathies and taking money from groups who have been indicted as conspirators in terror financing cases. Is it not a waste of time to spend money and energy denying the fashion appreciating public a Galliano retrospective? Would that energy not be better served fighting the rise of extremist Islam in a major political party?