Yeohlee Teng’s vision artfully incorporates volume, movement and innovative material play with many of her pieces destined for museum collections. In fact, Yeohlee designs have been featured in exhibitions around the world—including The Museum at FIT, the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, P.S. 1, MOCA in Los Angeles, and Somerset House in London.
Now, Phoenix Art Museum’s YEOHLEE | SERRA exhibition examines her designs as they relate to prints by Richard Serra.
This marks the first time her work has been deliberately paired with that of an artist—an experience Teng called “a learning experience – looking at my work with different eyes.”
Teng said the first time she was linked to Serra was within 1982’s Intimate Architecture: Contemporary Clothing Design at Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Hayden Gallery. “It was the first time exhibition that dealt with fashion as a design discipline rather than something that is just found in the pages of women’s magazines,” she said, citing the exhibition’s catalog that discussed her designs in relation to Serra’s work.
At Phoenix Art Museum, the juxtaposition of Teng’s minimalist black and ivory dresses and Serra’s large prints of dense, coal-tar blackness on a white background is mesmerizing, highlighting the kindred nature between the designer and artist.
Said Serra prints are part of the museum’s permanent collection, while The Metropolitan Museum of Art loaned the Yeohlee designs.
According to Dennita Sewell, The Jacquie Dorrance Curator of Fashion Design of Phoenix Art Museum, “The close relationship between these evening gowns, cut from a supple, heavy ivory satin jacquard with a black border (1991 to 1993), and the monumental drawings and prints that Serra had created eight years earlier, has been noted before. But the two bodies of work have never been presented together before now.”
Teng noted that even if there is a kindred spirit between the two, she hasn’t looked to Serra for inspiration – with one exception. “I am mostly inspired by people, more than anything else,” she said. “My favorite piece of Serra is Untitled (1973). I challenged myself to create something inspired by it, and made a scarf for this spring.”
In other words, those who can’t make it to Phoenix before the show closes on May 29 can still get their hands on a little Yeohlee-Serra magic.
