Profile
Francesca Granata is Associate Professor in the School of Art and Design History and Theory at Parsons School of Design. Her research centers on modern and contemporary visual and material culture with a particular focus on fashion history and theory, gender and performance studies. Her monograph examines the way experimental fashion at the turn of the twenty-first century mediated shifting gender norms and the AIDS crisis.听
Her forthcoming edited collection听听will be published by Bloomsbury in 2021. The first anthology of its kind, the book includes critics from the late 19th century (starting with Oscar Wilde) through the present. Among the authors anthologized are cultural critics and writers (including Susan Sontag, Angela Carter,听Bebe听Moore听Campbell, Eve Babitz听and Hilton Als) alongside fashion journalists, such as Vanessa Friedman, Robin Givhan and Guy Trebay. The anthology unveils how 鈥渇ashion media discourse鈥 not only mediated听the fashion ideals of those periods, but to the extent to which it was constantly intertwined with discourses outside its fields it produced 鈥渢ruths鈥 surrounding gender, race,听and a host of other identity categories. The book argues that fashion criticism occupied a central role in negotiating shifting gender roles as well as shifting understandings of race.
Granata has published in the journals Fashion Theory, The Journal of Design History and Fashion Practice,听in magazines such as听The Atlantic,听as well as in a number of books and exhibition catalogues. She is the editor and founder of the non-profit journal Fashion Projects (), a project fiscally sponsored by the New York Foundation for the Arts. She has been invited to lecture in museums including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, MoMA PS1, the Benaki Museum, Athens, and the Somerset House, as well as universities and design schools including Cornell University, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and IUAV Venezia.
In 2019 Granata curated, with Charlene K. Lau, the exhibition 鈥溾 at Parsons鈥檚 Aronson Gallery as part of the听听鈥淥therworldly 鈥渆xamined the political work at the intersections of costume, fashion and performance produced by three artists: Machine Dazzle, Narcissister and Rammellzee. It received funding from the听听and was highlighted in听Granata also co-curated, with Sarah Scaturro, "Ethics + Aesthetics," the first American exhibition exploring the interconnection between fashion and sustainability, and co-wrote the 听accompanying听.
Prior to coming to Parsons, she taught in the Visual Arts Department at Goldsmiths College and at NYU鈥檚 Visual Arts department, and was a Polaire-Weissman fellow at the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Arts. She has received grants from the University of the Arts London, the Coby Foundation, the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs. 听听
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Degrees Held
PhD, Visual and Material Culture, Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London
MA, Cinema and Media Studies, Tisch , NYU
BA Art History, Tufts University
BFA Visual Arts, Tufts University听
Recent Publications
Books听
鈥 听Experimental Fashion: 听Performance Art, Carnival and the Grotesque Body, London and New York: Bloomsbury/I.B. Tauris, February 2017
o 听听Russian translation forthcoming Moscow:听New Literary Observer, September 2020.
听鈥 An Anthology of Fashion Criticism.听London and New York: Bloomsbury, forthcoming 2021听
Exhibition Catalogue
Ethics + Aesthetics = Sustainable Fashion with Sarah Scaturro. Pratt Manhattan Gallery: New York, 2010
听Journal Articles听
鈥 鈥淔ashioning Cultural Criticism: An Inquiry into Fashion Criticism and its Delay in Legitimization,鈥 reviewed and accepted, published online April 2018, forthcoming in print Fashion Theory, 2019 听
鈥 鈥淒econstruction Fashion: Carnival and the Grotesque,鈥 The Journal of Design History, volume 26, number 2 (May 2013): 182-198 听
鈥 鈥淔ashion Studies In-Between: A Methodological Case Study and an Inquiry into the State of Fashion Studies鈥 Fashion Theory, volume 16, number 1 (March 2012): 67-82.
o Reprinted in Fashion Theory - Russia number 32 (Summer, 2014)
听 鈥 鈥淢ultiple Systems and Composite Identities in New York Fashion: An Interview with Mary Ping鈥 Fashion Practice, volume 1, number 2 (November 2009): 227-237 听
鈥 鈥淪ubverting Assumptions of Female Beauty: An Interview with Ann-Sofie Back,鈥 in Fashion Theory, volume 11, number 4 (December 2007)听
o Reprinted in Contributor Magazine issue 6 (2012): 391-401 听
听 Articles in Books听
鈥 鈥淏etween Performance and Performativity: Leigh Bowery鈥 in听Fashion Performance and Performativity听edited by Andrea Kollnitz and Marco Pecorari, forthcoming 2021
鈥 听 鈥淓xploring the Female Gaze: An Interview with Roxane Danset,鈥 in Ane Lynge-Jorl茅n edited,听Fashion Stylists: History, Meaning and Practice.听London and New York: Bloomsbury, August, 2020听
鈥 听 Chapter from听Experimental Fashion听听reprinted as "Martin Margiela's Carnivalized time: Margiela's Theatrical Costume Collection"听听in听Time in Fashion: Industrial, Antilinear and Uchronic Temporalities,听Edited by Caroline Evans and Alessandra Vaccari.听New York and London: Bloomsbury, 2020
o 听 "Il Tempo Carnevalizzato. Margiela e la Collezione di Costume," Il听Tempo della Moda.听Edited by Caroline Evans and Alessandra Vaccari. Milano e Udine: Mimesis Edizioni, 2019
鈥 鈥淎fterward鈥 to Scot D. Ryersson and Michael Orlando Yaccarino鈥檚 Marchesa Casati: Infinite Variety The Life and Legend of the Marchesa Casati, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, November 2017
听 鈥 鈥淔itting Sources 鈥 Tailoring Methods: A Case-Study of Martin Margiela and the Temporalities of Fashion鈥 in Fashion Studies: Research Methods, Sites and Practices, in Heike Jenss ed., London: Bloomsbury, 2016 听
鈥 鈥淢ikhail Bakhtin: Fashioning the Grotesque Body鈥 in Thinking Through Fashion: A Guide to the Key Theorists, in Agnes Rocamora and Anneke Smelik ed., London: I.B. Tauris, 2015 听
Edited Journals听
鈥 Fashion Projects, number 5 (2018), on Fashion Curation
鈥 Fashion Projects, number 4 (2013), on Fashion Criticism听
鈥 Fashion Projects, number 3 (2010), on Fashion and Memory
鈥 Fashion Projects, number 2 听(2008), on Art and Fashion Collectives, and Collaboration听
鈥 Fashion Projects, number 1 (2005), on Authenticity and Forgery 听
Articles in Exhibition Catalogues听
鈥 鈥淢artin Margiela and New Materialism鈥 in听Martin Margiela.听Paris: Lafayette Anticipations, 2021
鈥 Fashion Unbound鈥 in Clash: Counterculture in Fashion, Denmark: Horning Museum of Contemporary Art, 2014
鈥 Decentering Fashion: Carnival, Performance and the Grotesque Body,鈥 Not a Toy: Radical Character Design in Fashion and Costume, in Vasisilis Zidianakis ed., Berlin and Athens: Atopos Contemporary Visual Culture and Pictoplasma, October 2011
鈥 Bernhard Willhelm and Jutta Kraus, co-authored with Ingeborg Hams and Sue-an Van der Zijpp accompanying Willhelm and Krauss鈥 retrospective at the Groninger Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art. NAI Publishers: Amsterdam, 2010 听
鈥 鈥淔ashion of Inversions: The Grotesque and the Carnivalesque in Contemporary Belgian Fashion鈥 in Modus Operandi: State of Affairs in Current Research on Belgian Fashion, ModeMuseum: Antwerp, 2009 听
Articles in Magazines听 (selected)
鈥 鈥淭he Alienating Garments of Rei Kawakubo,鈥 The Atlantic, May 7, 2017听 听
鈥 鈥淐onsider the Garment鈥 An Interview with Paola Antonelli, Disegno, number 16, 2017 听
鈥 鈥淲hy Fashion Criticism Matters,鈥 Form Magazine for Nordic Architecture and Design, 2013 听
鈥 鈥淲omen鈥檚 Work鈥: An Interview with Judith Thurman,鈥 Fashion Projects, number 4, 2013.
听 o Reprinted in Design Observer, 2013 听
鈥 Transdisciplinary Practices: An Interview with Stefano Tonchi.鈥 Fashion Projects, number 4, 2013 听
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Research Interests
visual and material culture, fashion history, fashion theory, gender studies, performance studies, curation, sustainability
Awards And Honors
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The听 Coby Foundation听
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Polaire Weissman Art History Fellowship, the Metropolitan Museum of Art,
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Belgian-American Education Foundation
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New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and Lower Manhattan Cultural Council听
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University of the Arts London
Portfolio