Pattern and Decoration

Patchworks and decorative patterns on the one hand and a political-emancipatory claim on the other—the Pattern and Decoration movement combines apparent contradictions. It developed in the USA in the mid-1970s, brought forward by as many female artists as no other movement before. In reclaiming fantasy, color, variation of forms as well as sensuality, artists like Joyce Kozloff, Miriam Schapiro or Robert Kushner radically distinguished themselves from the predominant Minimal Art and Concept Art at that time. The movement questions not only traditional notions of art, but also addresses broader political and social issues like the position of women, Native Americans, or ethnic minorities in the global art scene. Pattern and Decoration represents an alternative to a male-dominated understanding of art that is globally influenced by the values of Western industrial states. The movement’s political and global aspiration is articulated through an aesthetic of captivating ease and seductive beauty: with works that celebrate sensuality, fantasy and color and through which social-critically contents, as well as an immediate lust for life, are conveyed.

The Ludwig Forum für Internationale Kunst Aachen, home to the largest public European collection of Pattern and Decoration artworks, now undertakes a first comprehensive reappraisal and reassessment of the artistic movement through this exhibition and publication project.

The exhibition will present about 65 works altogether, illustrating the movement’s diversity for the first time in Europe: the spectrum of artistic forms ranges from mosaics influenced by oriental art, monumental textile collages, paintings, and graphic works to room-sized installations and performances. More recent works by Polly Apfelbaum, Christine Streuli, and Rashid Rana, among others, demonstrate how the achievements of Pattern and Decoration continue to resonate to this day in terms of both form and content. In light of the rekindled discussions surrounding a “global art history,” the movement’s interest in pictorial elements from non-Western art is more topical than ever and will be reinterpreted against this background.

The project was initiated by the Ludwig Forum für Internationale Kunst Aachen and realized in cooperation with the mumok – Museum moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien. Following the venues in Aachen and Vienna, the exhibition will be on view at the Ludwig Museum – Museum of Contemporary Art, Budapest.

Publication: In conjunction with the exhibition, a comprehensive publication is published in both German and English by Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König (eds. Esther Boehle and Manuela Ammer).

Artists: Polly Apfelbaum, Adriana Czernin, Brad Davis, Frank Faulkner, Tina Girouard, Dan Hays, Valerie Jaudon, Joyce Kozloff, Robert Kushner, Thomas Lanigan-Schmidt, Kim MacConnel, Rashid Rana, Miriam Schapiro, Kendall Shaw, Christine Streuli, Ned Smyth, Lee Wagstaff, Heike Weber, Robert Zakanitch, Joe Zucker, among others

Curator: Esther Boehle
Curatorial assistant: Denise Petzold

With generous support of the Peter and Irene Ludwig Foundation, Terra Foundation for American Art, Stiftung der Sparda-Bank West