“And here we are, in the midst of elaborate trappings, of elaborate lives: An illumination of how important a modest life can be. This closet, all lined up with military precision and loving care, represents the unending search from the monumental to the mundane, for order, beauty, and meaning.”
Sara Berman’s Closet, a short by Bianca Giaever and Elori Kramer for The New Yorker. The film tells the story of “a frugal Jewish émigré” and her elegant, minimalist approach to life as seen through her clothing and personal items from the years 1982 to 2004. It’s narrated by Berman’s daughter, the writer, artist, and designer Maira Kalman, and was written by Maira and her son Alex Kalman of Mmuseumm, where the closet was first displayed publicly.
Of the installation, now on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Maira is said to have commented that “nothing in life has an expiration date. You are free to change at any age.”
Related vids: The Big Cloth (An Clò-Mòr), tents that turn into jackets, How A Mathematician Dissects an Astonishing Coincidence, Irina Werning’s Back to the Future, and Lotte Time Lapse: Birth to 12 years in 2m45s.Plus: More about ages and all kinds of growing, and more from The Met.
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