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Set against the backdrop of the Musée du Louvre’s Cour Marly and the “Louvre Couture” exhibition, Jordan Roth performed the world premier of “Radical Acts of Unrelenting Beauty” on July 10th, drawing inspiration from the museum’s vast collection and its storied classical and modern architecture. A synthesis of the artist’s practice, Roth’s debut performance piece explores the nexus of fashion, art, and the body—a trinity mirrored in the structure of the show—three acts, performed three times-and referencing the form of the Louvre’s iconic glass pyramid.
Weaving narrative themes touching upon encounters with the sublime, the nature of perception, and the agency of identity, Roth layers imagery and symbolism to articulate a unique artistic vocabulary. White fabric is a material throughline, an ever-unfolding prism of transformation. From a legible piece of couture to a gown of a new color, design, and embellishment, to a coat of wings, to expanded wings of flight, to a floating abstract shape, to a towering gown, and ultimately to an iconic symbol. The fabric shifting form and state, solid to fluid, clothing to architecture, human scale to epic, earthbound to soaring.
Guides clothed in reference to artisans of couture ateliers and museum art handlers accompany Roth through the journey of the performance. Projectors display works sourced from the Louvre’s vast collections onto the white fabric of each act’s garments, offering new avenues for their understanding while simultaneously proposing a commentary on the body as a vessel of artistic expression. The projectors serve as an allegory for the nature of how we see, and are seen by others. Marbleized dress forms cast from Roth’s torso echo both the classical sculptures populating the Cour Marly and the dress forms essential to the craft of fashion. Gathered together, “Radical Acts of Unrelenting Beauty” is an exploration of beauty’s capacity to unlock individual freedom and self-expression.
