Beauty’s a pretty big topic. Almost all of art history, up until postmodernism, dealt with it in some way, whether that’s the divine kind, the physical kind or the ooh-isn’t-that-poppy-field nice kind. But with its usual combination of art, artefact and science, the Wellcome Collection is looking at the physical kind, with diversions into gender binaries, issues of race, the cosmetics industry and what that means for beauty standards.
The whole space is decked out in pink fabric and concrete, like a real life Juno Calypso photo (two of which show up later). It starts with a bust of Nefertiti and seventeenth century drawings of the devil attacking vain women. There are perfect-figured Roman sculptures and turn-of-the-century French corsets, copies of Vogue and a reclining marble Hermaphroditus.
But the show gets so caught up in trying to make points that it forgets to tell a coherent story. It wants to tell you that beauty is a tool of colonialism, a perpetuator of whiteness, or used to enforce gender norms. But it doesn’t bother to explain how beauty went from Rubens to Kate Moss, or the Venus of Willendorf to Nefertiti, how different beauty standards are in Africa or Asia, or how beauty has changed, evolved, mutated.
The points made aren’t the issue, it’s just that it feels like being stuck in an argument instead of walking through an exhibition, being lectured instead of educated.
There are still great things here. Those unsettling Juno Calypso photos, Narcissister’s tower of her mother’s belongings, the incredible photo of the artist Cassils after sculpting their own body to heroic trans-masc proportions, terrifying beauty tools and iron bodices.
Maybe the problem is that the exhibition is too broad. It would work as a show about the beauty industry, or about contemporary beauty standards, or about the history of beauty. But as an attempt at all three, it’s just a bit ugly.
