Ornament, Art, and Politics
Isabella Segalovich
ONLINE - 6 weeks
Payment Plans + Financial Aid

Day of the week: Tuesday

6 Weeks of Classes: September 27, October 4, October 11, October 18, October 25, November 1

Time: 7-9pm (EST)

Length: 2 hrs.

About this course:

Ornament, Art, and Politics is an online art history seminar course led by Isabella Segalovich. Isabella is an artist and educator who studies the intersections of ornament, art, and politics. Virtually every folk culture uses complex, ornamental symbols, many laden with meaning and passed down through countless generations. Over time, however, many elite art and design theorists rejected ornament as frivolous, backward, and even criminal. Along the way, crafts such as embroidery became associated with femininity and queerness, color and pattern coupled with non-whiteness and exoticism, and serious artists are written off as “mere decorators.” So what is forgotten when we erase ornamental history? What can traditions of ornament tell us about how to transmit meaning through images? From traditional ceremonial tattoos, to worldwide graffiti movements, to European orientalist paintings, we’ll find that ornament is a powerful tool that can be used for a wide range of political purposes.

Artists in this course will explore topics such as:

• The origins of ornament in folk art like tattoos, vernacular wall murals, and clothing

• How embroidery and textile work was feminized and became associated with queerness in Western Europe, (continued today in the exploitation of women garment workers around the world,) and how textile work in art is viewed today

• How ornament was employed in Orientalist art and architecture/decoration traditions like Chinoiserie and Japonisme, to depict exotic lands - and dreams of conquering and plundering their riches

• How ornament was demonized by figures like Adolf Loos, and how that contributed to cultural erasure and the stigma around tattoos and graffiti

• The birth of - and dedication to - “white cube” galleries

• The mid 20th century Minimalist art movement and its relationship with symbolism and meaning in art (or purposeful lack thereof!) and its political implications

• Postmodernism, the Pattern and Decoration movement, and whether there is a renaissance of craft intertwined with ornamental expression today.

Guest Speaker:

Financial Aid is available. NYC Crit Club provides payment plans, BIPOC scholarships and additional aid based on extenuating circumstances. Please click here to learn more before checking out.