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Out of the closet - at last
The Philadelphia Museum of Art's costume and textiles collection - more than 30,000 pieces of clothing, accessories and fabrics - is impressive, ranking right up there with those housed in New York and Los Angeles art museums. But with only 400 square feet of gallery space, its curators have never had enough room to show it off. That will change this week when the much-anticipated Ruth and Raymond G. Perelman Building opens. The department's inaugural exhibition, "A Passion for Perfection," will debut Saturday in the 2,000-square-foot, royal-blue Joan Spain Gallery for Costume and Textiles. It will include nearly 50 pieces from ultra-high-end Philadelphia-bred designers Gustave Tassell, James Galanos and Ralph Rucci. Piling on the riches, in November a 1,200-square-foot study gallery will open, highlighting the museum's most recent costume and textile acquisitions.
Silk City's last stand
Ordinarily, the items one encounters at the Paterson Museum are of past generations: mementos of famous local residents Lou Costello or Larry Doby, early submarines or steam engines. It's rare that you get exposed to something of a more recent vintage. "A Silent Mill: The Final Days of the Teshon Mill" shows that as recently as two years ago, Paterson still had a vestige of its once-grand silk mill industry. Museum director Giacomo DeStefano and photo archives specialist Joseph Costa captured the mill in color early last year as it closed. Unlike other photographic studies of Paterson's past, this one is not an exploration of decayed structures and machinery. Instead, you get a view of what the business might have looked like on a quiet Sunday afternoon between work weeks.
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