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The Art, History and Fetish of High Heels Explored In Brooklyn Museum Exhibit


August 5, 2014 | Marina Galperina

Attention fashionistas and fetishists. “Killer Heels: The Art of the High-Heeled Shoe” exploring “one of the most provocative and iconic objects of desire” comes to the Brooklyn Museum this September.

Through more than 160 artfully-crafted historical and contemporary high heels from the seventeenth century through the present, the exhibition examines the mystique and transformative power of the elevated shoe and its varied connections to fantasy, power, and identity.

The exhibit will feature historically uncomfortable, intricately detailed elevated shoes dating as far back as the 1500s, but also specimens from the ’50s and ’60s and a whole load of poppy items from couture designer lines of 2013. They’re grouped by themes — Revival and Reinterpretation, Rising in the East, Glamour and Fetish, Architecture, Metamorphosis, and Space Walk. Shoe inspired video pieces from  Ghada Amer and Reza Farkhondeh, Zach Gold, Steven Klein, Nick Knight, Marilyn Minter, and Rashaad Newsome will also be on view. Rashaad Newsome’s Knot video alone (as seen in the kaleidoscopic ass spectacle above) should be enough to get you a little bit excited. I’ll be there in flats.

“Killer Heels: The Art of the High-Heeled Shoe,” Various Artists, Sep 10 – Feb 15, Brooklyn Museum (Images Courtesy Brooklyn Museum)