British artist Daniel Lismore’s monumental ‘wearable art’ featuring everything from trash to elaborate jewel-encrusted headgear will be unveiled at the center of London’s Victoria and Albert Museum on Friday. It became a stage.
Guests were invited to take a closer look at the work, which is approximately 2 meters (6 feet, 4 inches) tall. One of his was worn by Lismore, who calls himself a “living sculpture.”
“I am not a performance artist or a drag queen, I just live as art,” he said in an interview.
Lismore said the pieces, which feature brightly colored fabrics and metal embellishments, took between two hours and eight months to assemble and were inspired by people and things from around the world.
“Each piece has hundreds of stories,” he said.
“I have the cover of the prestigious iD magazine. I have the piece I wore to Buckingham Palace at the Queen’s Platinum Party. I have something.”
The clothes he wore on Friday featured his heaviest and personally important items.
“I wanted to remember, over the years, everything that has meant to me throughout my life, from when I was a teenager, to when I was being bullied,” Lismore said.
“And it had a mirror. It was to reflect the person looking at me so they could see themselves in me.”
The artist, who made her London debut at the show, presented 12 works from the 2016 traveling exhibition Be Yourself, Everything Else is Taken in Atlanta.