With lids lined and lashed primed, the eyes of the fashion and art world have turned to Antwerp’s MoMu Fashion Museum, where a new exhibition, Masquerade, Make-up & Ensor, has recently opened. James Ensor’s use of masks and masquerades as a vehicle for social commentary and critical observation served as inspiration for this exhibition, which spans visual art, photography, installation, interventions, and film to explore the role and function of make-up. One of four major exhibitions across Antwerp marking the 75th anniversary of the avant-garde artist’s death, the exhibition exemplifies MoMu’s acclaimed curatorial experimentalism. It invites us to muse upon make-up as a form of self-expression, just like paint is for an artist.

“The concept for the exhibition came from our desire to explore the role and function of masks in Ensor’s work and how he used them to show someone's true character. We wanted to look at make-up in the same way. Throughout history, make-up has often been perceived as a way of hiding one’s true identity, especially for women. We want to ask three main questions in this exhibition: Why do we wear masks? How do we deal with ever-changing beauty ideals? And why are we so afraid of visible ageing?” says Elisa de Wyngaert, one of the exhibition’s curators.

In Ensor’s painting Theatre of Masks (1889), one of three theatrically themed works that open the MoMu show, we see how the artist used masks to emphasise his subjects’ deceitfulness, falsity and hypocrisy. Like masks, make-up is a means of concealing and revealing. We observe this in the work of internationally-renowned make-up artists such as Peter Philips and Inge Grognard, who are considered “painters of the fashion industry.”

Their work is showcased through a series of make-up looks for Maison Martin Margiela created in collaboration with Belgian make-up artist Inge Grognard from 1988-2008, which are hung alongside some of the ‘tools’ Grognard used to create the looks, including real paint brushes, rubber stamps, and colour pigments. Philip and Grognard’s make-up experiments challenged the prevailing notions of glamour and sex appeal that defined beauty standards in the 1990s. We also see the essential role of make-up in ‘completing’ a designer’s artistic vision on the runway through a display of Philips’ personal inspiration books. Each is filled with backstage polaroids, creative ideas and musings and captures the peaks and troughs of his decades-long career.

Inge Grognard in collaboration with Ronald Stoops, 2001, © Photo: Ronald Stoops

Inge Grognard make-up for Maison Martin Margiela Autumn-Winter 1996-1997, © Photo: Ronald Stoops

Inge Grognard in collaboration with Ronald Stoops, 'Postpunk' in View On Colour Magazine, 2000, © Photo: Ronald Stoops

Make-up by Inge Grognard for Balenciaga Spring-Summer 2023, © Photo: Inge Grognard

Peter Philips make-up for Alexander McQueen Autumn-Winter 2009-2010, © Photo: Robert Fairer

An alluring display of wigs, headwear and visual diaries by French artist and hairstylist Julian Dys (who initially studied as a painter and went on to work for the likes of Karl Lagerfeld, Alaïa and Rei Kawakubo for Comme des Garçons) fuses history, modernity and dark romanticism in a fashion context. And then, of course, there is makeup artistry in the truest sense, such as the eight-layer porcelain skin effect that Pat McGrath created for John Galliano's Spring 2024 Couture show for Maison Margiela. This feat took McGrath years to develop, and videos of the models peeling the doll-like second skin from their faces after the show went viral. Walter Van Beirendonck, who always draws the make-up looks for his shows and asks artists to then translate to the face, has always been fascinated by the idea of metamorphosis and considers make-up as the final element to completing a silhouette. In the exhibition, his Heads Will Rollbouquet (2024) demonstrates a rather ‘Ensorian’ use of masks and full face coverings as a means of unveiling and obscuring a character’s identity.

“Ensor thought a lot about how humans, particularly women, deal with ever-changing beauty ideals. He saw the evolution of make-up being worn as an artificial guise by women in the 18th century, while in the 19th century, it was associated with excessive luxury and overt sexuality, therefore becoming taboo. It was only by the end of the 19th century that it became tolerated, and in the 20th century make-up became a commercialised product used by everyone,” explains curator Romy Cockx.

“In the 1880s, Ensor painted women in the course of daily life, and we observe the presence of ‘make-up’ on their faces, such as lipstick and blush on the cheeks. They might not have been wearing this make-up in real life, but he used it strategically for expressive artistic effect or to enhance some aspect of his painting”, Cockx reveals. We observe this in closer detail in the extensive Ensor retrospective In Your Wildest Dreams: Ensor Beyond Impressionism, running concurrently at Antwerp’s KMSKA Royal Museum of Fine Arts. A contemporary perspective is also seen in the MoMu show, with a room dedicated to Irish artist Genieve Figgis, whose paintings defy classical and conventional beauty ideals by depicting archetypal female figures in a style that blurs the boundaries between the beautiful and the grotesque. 

James Ensor, Astonishment of the Mask Wouse, 1889, Collection Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp – Flemish Community, © photo: Hugo Maertens, www.artinflanders.be, inv. 2042

Sketchbook Julien d'Ys for Comme des Garçons Spring-Summer 2002, © Julien d'Ys

Issy Wood, Self portrait 32, 2022, © Issy Wood 2023, courtesy the artist; Carlos/Ishikawa, London; and Michael Werner, New York. Photo: Damian Griffiths

Cindy Sherman, Untitled #360, 2000, © Cindy Sherman, Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth

Genieve Figgis, Fashion shoot, 2021, © Courtesy of the artist and Almine Rech. GFI0249. Photo: Dan Bradica

Naturally, ageing has long been an enemy of the beauty and fashion industry—youth has always equated to  beauty. As presented in the exhibition, artists and photographers, including Cindy Sherman and Harley Weir, address the idea of ageing with honesty, using irony and the hallmarks of contemporary and popular culture to bring ideas about female criticism, stereotyping and over-sexualisation to the forefront of public consciousness. Conceived especially for the exhibition, a theatrical installation by hairstylist Cyndia Harvey and couturier Christian Lacroix titled Miss Havisham (2024) challenges enduring associations between age and declining beauty, inspired by the character of Miss Havisham in Charles Dickens’s 1861 novel Great Expectations (who is left waiting at the wedding altar and therefore resolves to wear her wedding dress for the rest of her life). In Harvey and Lacroix’s evocation, the figure of Miss Havisham is resplendent in a Christian Lacroix Spring/Summer 2004 couture gown and a wild, blazing red wig, signifying not her diminishing beauty but her ‘fire’ that burns more intensely over time.

Our relationship with make-up is complex. Like the masks in James Ensor’s work, it can be both a concealment and a means of revealing ourselves to the world. But, we have to remember that make-up is make-up. Its influence, effect and power are signified by the way we choose to apply it and in what context we choose to do so. There’s no right or wrong; there is light and shade. As Ensor remarked, “The mask means to me: freshness of colour, sumptuous decoration, wild unexpected gestures, very shrill expressions and exquisite turbulence.” 

Masquerade, Make-up and Ensor is showing at MoMu Fashion Museum Antwerp until 2 February, 2025.