An oil on canvas abstract painting titled  Ecclesia, by Bridget Riley is one of the works in Criminal Ornamentation an exhibition curated by Yinka Shonibare that criticises Adolf Loos at the Arts Council Collection. Image: Arts Council Collection

ART REVIEW

Yinka Shonibare’s Criminal Ornamentation at the Arts Council Collection in London criticizes Adolf Loos, describing his revolutionary zeal to abandon ornamentation as snobbish and uninformed.

BY KAZAD

LONDON- Criminal Ornamentation, a new Arts Council Collection Touring exhibition curated by Yinka Shonibare MBE explores the cultural and social dimensions of the use of pattern in modern and contemporary art. The show features more than 83 artists with a number of celebrated artists including Timorous Beasties, Susan Derges, Laura Ford, Ed Lipski, Alexander McQueen, Milena Dragicevic, Lis Rhodes, Bridget Riley, Yinka Shonibare MBE, Caragh Thuring, and Bedwyr Williams.

The title of the show comes from Adolf Loos’ 1908 influential essay Ornament and Crime. In the essay, Loos examines the notions of good and bad taste and concludes that the use of decoration and craft is an indication of the lowest level of cultural development. Furthermore, he contends that ‘the modern man who tattoos himself is a criminal.’

With Criminal Ornamentation, Yinka Shonibare MBE confronts Adolf Loos’ notion by saying ‘Adolf Loos was clearly a man of his time in his snobbish revolutionary zeal to abandon ornamentation as he saw it as the pre-occupation of the working classes and degenerates’.

For Shonibare, the use of color, ornaments, and patterns in art goes beyond art for art sake.

Karl Maughan, Aro Valley, 1999.  Oil on canvas 228.5 x 259 cm Arts Council Collection, Southbank Centre, London ©the artist

Many of the works in Criminal Ornamentation are reflective of Yinka’s own practice, whereby he explores the cultural and social dimensions of pattern in modern and contemporary art. Included in the exhibition is a range of works that Shonibare has chosen from the Arts Council Collection to challenge the notion of ornament as crime. For Shonibare, the use of color, ornaments, and patterns in art goes beyond art for art sake. They are also a means to make social and political statements.  Therefore, many of the works in Criminal Ornamentation reflect Shonibare’s embrace of color, ornaments, and patterns as a means for social and political expression.

One of the artists whose works feature prominently in the show is the acclaimed artist Bridget Riley who uses color, ornaments, and patterns to challenge and confront viewers’ perception. In Ecclesia, 1985, for instance, Riley uses geometric patterns and repetition to create new shapes and spaces by changing the viewer’s point of perception. For this piece, Riley combines narrow vertical stripes of bright color to create a rainbow effect and produce a subtle visual experience. However, beyond bands of color and stripes, the work challenges how the viewer perceives a shape individual and in combination with others.  It also raises the issue of identity. How do you perceive individual identity as compared to a collective?

As with Bridget Riley’s Ecclesia, Andy Holden’s Totem for Thingly Time, 2014, uses dripping plaster and household emulsions of different colors to raise questions about place and time. As the artist notes, the sculpture was an attempt to ‘reveal the time of its own construction’. Like a “bird’s nest,” Totem for Thingly raises questions about settlement, displacement, and migration. In the face of the recent issues of migration across the world, the work seems to bring to focus some of the temporary shelters built by migrants from discarded materials as they wait for their next move in migrant camps.

The issues of class, taste, and snobbery are at the core of Bedwyr Williams’ The Burn, 2012. Made of a shell-encrusted metal BBQ, Williams plays with the idea of ‘kitsch’, raising questions of how critics, collectors, and other art professionals determine hierarchy in art. With this piece, he seems to be asking the following questions: What is high art, low art, or kitsch? What criteria or who determines what can be classified as high art or kitsch? Who are the arbiters of taste?  Is it Adolf Loos or David Hume?

The significance of these questions arises not just from the idea of Kitsch inherent in Bedwyr Williams’ The Burn but also because it touches on the notion of the ‘Other’. The piece is immediately a reminder of some of the ritual objects in voodoo shrines or used during ritual ceremonies in Nigeria as well as other African countries. Although objects of this nature were labeled as crafts in the past, they are today central objects in museums across the globe.

Bedwyr Williams’ discourse about class, taste, and snobbery continues in Ron McCormick’s photograph titled Man by China Stall 1973. The photograph depicts a man surrounded by decorative pottery that was popular at the time but considered ‘kitsch’ by the elite. In a manner similar to The Burn, Man by China Stall questions the veracity of the elites who determine art hierarchy.  Interestingly, many of what was considered kitsch by the elites in the past are art today. Therein is the importance of Man by China Stall. It explores how society’s taste changes over time while examining the crossover between ornaments, craft, and art.

Zigzag: Adolf Loos, Bashir Makhoul, and Design Politics

In addition to raising questions about the hegemony of art hierarchy, several of the works on display help emphasize the idea that patterns can be used to address salient issues. Although some of the works are decorative pieces, they also point to the diverse potential of abstract patterns within art as a means of provoking critical engagement. The works explore postcolonialism and the strong connection between individuals and society. An important example of such works is Bashir Makhoul’s Zigzag, 1992.

Bashir Makhoul, Zigzag, 1992. Acrylic on canvas 2 parts, total, 230 x 350cm © the artist

In Zigzag, Makhoul explores the theme of politics using Islamic patterns. His work challenges Adolf Loos’ notion that ornamentations are insignificant and devoid of meaning. Dominating the oil on canvas painting are Islamic patterns superimposed over a largely red background. In the upper right corner of the painting is what looks like the logo of Shell, a British–Dutch multinational oil and gas company that has been at the center of complaints about oil pollution in developing countries.  The painting questions ‘Western capitalism and the Eastern Oil Empire’.

The significance of Zigzag is obviously not lost on Shonibare, a student of history, who understands how oil companies like Shell caused destruction in Nigeria. In the past, several of Shonibare’s works have addressed the issue of oil spillage, pollution, and the callousness of oil companies like Shell that willfully rape developing nations. Works like Black Gold and Flower Cloud raise questions about capitalism, greed, exploitation, and pollution, especially in Nigeria, where Shell was a key player in the oil industry.

The story of Shell and the Ogoni people was tragic.  Significantly, Shell was at the center of the Ogoni crisis in Nigeria. The company’s oil operation led to oil spills and leaks that devastated the Ogoniland along the Niger Delta. In addition to destroying the livelihood of the Ogoni people who were predominantly farmers and fisher people, Shell was also accused of human right violations. The denigration of the environment and deplorable situation of the Ogoni people led to unprecedented public protests and conflict. In 1994, nine Ogoni leaders were arrested and executed in 1995 by hanging. Their crime?  Protesting the environmental degradation caused by oil operations and the maltreatment of their people by the Shell oil company and others. Perhaps, the most notable of the Ogoni nine killed by the military government was is Ken Saro-Wiwa, a writer, TV producer, and environmentalist.

Yinka Shonibare’s  Line Painting: Beyond Aesthetics and Adolf Loos

Yinka Shonibare, Line Painting, 2003. Emulsion and acrylic on textile. Diameter: 312cm. © The artist and Stephen Friedman Gallery (London)

Beyond aesthetics, many of the works in this show are proof that it is important for viewers to look beyond beauty when analyzing a work of art. Looking at Yinka Shonibare’s Line Painting, 2003, for instance, it is possible to lose the message inherent in this decorative piece. Made up of an array of small canvases with Dutch wax fabric prints as their support, the work tells the layered story of Ankara, the Dutch wax fabric that is now synonymous with African fashion. The story of the Dutch wax fabric is that of power play and intrigues among colonialists who stabbed each other in the back to actualize their capitalist intentions.

Shonibare’s Line Painting, in spite of its astonishing visual qualities, carries with it a history of colonialism, culture, capitalism, and political intrigues. Although synonymous with African, the Dutch wax prints actually originated in Indonesia. In an intriguing maneuver to upstage Indonesia, the batik techniques were industrialized by Dutch colonizers and manufactured in Holland. Aware of the commercial success of the Dutch wax prints in West Africa, the British soon decided that they wanted, not a piece of the cake, but the whole cake. They copied and then monopolized the process by building factories in Manchester, employing Asian workers and English designers to produce goods for export to West African markets.

Many of the works in Criminal Ornamentation are subtle in their criticism of events and situations. Some even have elements of comedy. However, even when comedy is at the core, the works are still very critical of situations. Timorous Beasties’ ‘London Toile’ Wallpaper, for example, portrays a dark sense of humor in its mismatch between form and content. Viewed from a distance, the work resembles a traditional chintz pattern. However, on a closer examination, the work features many shocking contemporary references including the depiction of a mugging, a seemingly homeless man on a park bench and a recognizable brutalist landmark, the Trellick Tower.

As with female artists, male artists have been using designs, patterns, and ornamentation in their works to make important points for decades.  An embroidered evening dress and a metallic clutch bag by fashion designer Alexander McQueen on display as part of Criminal Ornamentation blur the boundaries between high and low art, cheap and luxurious, craft and art.  Installed alongside other works, the McQueen’s designs break down the boundaries of gender association with pattern and fabric. It points to the fact that the use of designs and ornamentation in art is gender neutral.

Adolf Loos design philosophy is antithetical to many of the works in Criminal Ornamentation. Although one of the most influential European architects of the late 19th century, Adolf Loos was famous for his writings through which he articulated his design philosophy. He abhorred ornamentation and this reflected in his architectural designs. Adolf Loos’ buildings were often composed of pure forms and were justified by their economic practicality and utilitarian qualities. For Adolf Loos, it is crime to explore ornamentation because it was a sign of degeneracy. In many ways, Criminal Ornamentation contradicts Adolf Loos design philosophy.

Throughout the exhibition, there is evidence of Yinka Shonibare’s effort to bring attention to the use of pattern for aesthetic and an effective way to engage critical issues. In his works, Shonibare effectively uses Ankara, the luxurious wax prints now associated with Africa, to make poignant comments about colonialism, oppression, and Western hegemony. Like many of the artists in this show, Shonibare is one of the criminals who use ornamentation to make poignant statements about race, colonialism, gender inequality, oppression and so many other salient issues.  As Shonibare said, Criminal Ornamentation is about the refusal of artists to stay away from vulgar ornamentation and obsessive popular repetition of pattern. Cheers to all the criminals!!’

The choice of Yinka Shonibare as curator for this show is thoughtful. An artist with a deep understanding of design aesthetic and the interpretation of design, Shonibare has inserted his works into global art discourse by using ornamentation to raise questions about colonial history as well as criticize the hegemonic relationship between Western art and the ‘Other’. Shonibare uses ornamentation as seductive elements to entrap viewer before exposing the truth inherent in his works. In addition to ornamentation, he also explores humor to address very serious issues. Not surprising, his curation of Criminal Ornamentation deviates from curatorial norms by producing a show that directly confronts Adolf Loos’ overzealous argument that ornamentation is the pre-occupation degenerates.

Jill Constantine, Director of the Arts Council Collection puts it succinctly that the exhibition is ‘not only a visually stunning exhibition but one which questions the place of decoration and ornament in 21st-century art and culture and our notions of ‘taste’ in a playful and evocative way.’  Criminal Ornamentation will travel to Exeter, Wakefield, and Southampton after the show at Arts Council Collection. While the list of artists will change from place to place, the show will retain its aura.

What do you think about the use of color, ornaments, and patterns in art? Do you think Adolf Loos was right that the use of decoration and craft is an indication of the lowest level of cultural development? Share your thoughts, leave a comment.