SF: 16 June – 4 August

NY: 12 July - 17 August
PATTERN VS. DECORATION
 
The “Pattern and Decoration” movement of the 1970s arose in response to the
emergence of Minimalism and its strictures. It derived in part from Pop Art’s
exuberant cultural mining and partly from feminist theorists’ re-thinking of tradi-
tional hierarchies. It expressed a renewed interest in “craft” and a sense
that the inviolate distinction between the “fine arts” and “decorative arts” was
artificial. Motifs from textiles, architecture and ceramics were appropriated and
applied to painting according to the aesthetics of 20th Century formalism.
Although the “P&D” movement was dismissed by many as “light weight,” its
influence can be seen more and more in contemporary work. This exhibition
explores the use of pattern as a tool for expression by a new generation of
artists.

Anoka Faruqee’s paintings allude to a numerical language common to computer
technology, weaving and Islamic tiling. Her works, which appear to be pixilated,
examine painting’s relationship to mass production and the societal value placed
on “originality.”

Andrea Higgins’ Pat is a painted representation of a swatch of fabric from the
dress First Lady Pat Nixon wore to her daughter’s wedding. For Higgins, the
wardrobe one chooses is a reflection of personality as well as the social class to
which one belongs or aspires to attain. She postulates that the style of the wife
of a U.S. President also reflects the social climate and political priorities of the
administration of which she is a part.

Julie Chang’s preoccupation with ornament is also based on her belief that
patterns serve as markers of social class. For her, repetitive, wallpaper-like
pattern can signify cultural anxieties, and camouflage private histories.

In Stefan Kürten’s paintings, the decorative patterns of vintage wallpaper inter-
twine with scenes of human habitation. Architecture can only, and sometimes
barely, be viewed though a screen of history.

The landscapes of Jutta Haeckel’s paintings are criss-crossed by shadows, graf-
fiti, and tattoo-like markings which filter our “view.” Inspection reveals these
“marks” to in fact be the ground of the painting and the landscape to have been
painted in around them, subverting notions of content and surface.

Driss Ouadahi’s paintings are riffs on the modernist grid painting, as well as
representations of the high-rise housing developments built on the peripheries
of cities like Paris and Berlin to accommodate growing immigrant populations.
These abstract paintings bring to mind the politics of class, religion, ethnicity and
ghettoization.

Without a straight edge, Nicole Phungrasamee Fein lays down bands of color on
paper. Each stroke is the product of a cycle of inhalation, breath retention and
mark making, then exhalation. Through a process that owes as much to
performance-based body art or meditation practices as it does traditional water-
color painting, she creates luminous fields of pattern.

Elise Adibi’s paintings are each constructed from an algorithm. Self-generating,
they develop systematically, yet erratically. Patterns loop back on themselves
and the clarity of the original pattern becomes corrupted by the “noise” of
physicality, error and complexity.

Gerhard Mayer’s wall drawings are abstract expressions of quantum physics –
interpretations of the non-material aspects of matter. They are drawn with India
ink, scanned, then e-mailed from his studio in Germany to a production facility in
the U.S. Here they are manufactured in vinyl with adhesive backing for mounting
directly to a wall.

Other artists included in the exhibition are Jonathan Brand, Reed Danziger,
Susan Marie Dopp, Jacob el Hanani, Joan Grubin, Melinda Hackett, Marietta
Hoferer, Dorothy Napangardi, Gay Outlaw, Lordy Rodriguez, Brian Wasson,
Crystal Liu & Jeremy Stenger.
 


 

 
xxxxxxx

 
Andrea Higgins, Pat, 2007 [detail]
 
Julie Chang, Ballerina Dad, 2007
 
Jonathan Brand, Shipping Box, 2007