Kamrooz Aram, From the series 7000 Years (2), 2014
Mixed media on paper, 35 x 43 cm
In 1910, Austrian architect Adolf Loos famously called ornament a crime, the very antithesis of modernist aesthetics. Curated by Murtaza Vali, Geometries of Difference: New Approaches to Ornament and Abstraction brings together the work of seven contemporary artists—Derrick Adams, Kamrooz Aram, Rana Begum, Jeffrey Gibson, Jason Middlebrook, Kanishka Raja, and Seher Shah—who subtly subvert modernist abstraction through strategies of difference, pushing geometry and pattern to the verge of ornament.
Drawing from and referring to Western abstraction and other aesthetic traditions more accepting of ornament, the artworks in the exhibition will present a terrain upon which a dialogue between the two visual discourses can unfold, revealing unexpected juxtapositions and intersections that challenge traditional art histories.