Ornament ohne Verbrechen

Das Ornament ist wieder da! Anlässlich der Ausstellung „Ornament neu aufgelegt“ im Schweizer Architekturmuseum Basel ist Band 5 der Publikationsreihe S AM , herausgegeben von Oliver Domeisen, erschienen. Domeisen hat an der Architectural Association in London die Verwendung und Bedeutung des Ornaments durch die Jahrhunderte untersucht und zusammen mit SAM-Direktorin Francesca Ferguson die Ausstellung kuratiert. [Read more]

Philip Taaffe | The Ornament Strikes Back

„Ornament ist vergeudete arbeitskraft und dadurch vergeudete gesundheit. So war es immer. Heute bedeutet es aber auch vergeudetes material, und beides bedeutet vergeudetes kapital. Da das ornament nicht mehr organisch mit unserer kultur zusammenhängt, ist es auch nicht mehr der ausdruck unserer kultur. Das ornament, das heute geschaffen wird, hat keinen zusammenhang mit uns, hat überhaupt keine menschlichen zusammenhänge, keinen zusammenhang mit der weltordnung. Es ist nicht entwicklungsfähig.“ Adolf Loos – „Ornament und Verbrechen“ (1908)
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Philip Taaffe | The Ornament Strikes Back

“Ornament is squandered labor and thereby squandered health. That has always been the case. But today it also means squandered material, and both mean squandered capital. It is not capable of development.” Adolf Loos – “Ornament and Crime” (1908)

This castigation of the ornament had an impact. Viennese architect Loos thereby established one of the most influential modern dogmas. Up to today, building decoration is understood as senseless adornment; in design, the valid principle is that form follows function. But what has been discredited for a long time also at some point catches new wind and resurfaces. So for some time, the ornament has stood under the more than skeptical general suspicion that it will soon reappear on the cyclical picture surface.

Philip Taaffe Foto > Alexandra Lerman

Philip Taaffe is involved in it. Or to put it differently, he has never renounced his interest in ornamentation and for that reason was also perhaps always a marginal figure in the art business. In the early 1980s, Taaffe became known in conjunction with the phenomena of appropriation art. The appropriationists unconventionally made use of the world of images made available by consumer society. Even more unconventionally, they made use of the output of fellow artists, thereby earning the reproach of being unimaginative copiers. Taaffe exchanged the “zips” in Barnett Newman’s colossal paintings that have become an art-historical myth for spirals. Thus, recognized geometric forms were transformed into something questionable. He appeared to imitate Matisse, but also op art and Bauhaus graphics. On the sleek surfaces of his pictures, all kinds of forms and symbols were amassed, sometimes forming symmetrical shapes, then again random disorder. Some suggested floral motifs, others Celtic, but from time to time the stylized contour of a Playboy bunny also seemed to go astray on the canvas. Over the years, Taaffe’s compositions become more complicated, the symbols and ornaments more mystical and sometimes esoteric. He brings forms together, which he encounters on his trips through the continents or which he unearths from the legacies of art history like botany. Perhaps that is how Taaffe is able to bestow honor on the ornament, but also to lend it new punch. But he still does not make things simple for the viewer.

Atelier Views of Philip Taaffe

Text > Marcus Woeller

First Picture> Philip Taaffe, „Semara“, 2002
Mixed Media auf Leinwand
Courtesy Studio d’Arte Raffaelli, Trento© 2008 Philip Taaffe

Philip Taaffe: Das Leben der Formen.
Werke 1980 – 2008
08.03. till 12.10.2008
Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg
www.kunstmuseum-wolfsburg.de