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270114: Neues Museum – Staatliches Museum für Kunst und Design in Nürnberg Philip Taaffe – Die Weltsprache des Ornaments (Universal language of ornaments)
Neues Museum – Staatliches Museum für Kunst und Design in Nürnberg
Philip Taaffe – Die Weltsprache des Ornaments (Universal language of ornaments)
27.09.2013 – 06.04.2014
Ornament is not a crime
By Matthias Kampmann
“Today, no ornament can be created by someone who lives on our cultural level”, raged the Austrian architect, critic and writer Adolf Loos in 1908 in his programmatic polemic pamphlet “Ornament and Crime”. One would save time and money if formal ornaments would disappear from culture. The militant book was printed in modern lower case. Here, the author waged his war against the taste often found in historicism and Art nouveau – which he had seemed to have won. After all, until today, Modernism in buildings and paintings comes across as geometrical. But what about Theo van Doesburg’s reconstructions of squares? And the industrial still lifes in new photography?
Moreover, it is too bad that Loos thought rather formalistically and completely neglected conceptual issues. Today, the situation is different. A more extensive understanding of ornament allows for a new view. And we also owe this to the American artist Philip Taaffe. With his works, the artist, born 1955, who studied under Hans Haacke, proves that a new cultural level can be reached – with ornamental art. Visitors to the New Museum in Nuremberg can convince themselves. With only five large-format works, presented in a convincing manner.
The works were provided by the collection of the Cologne-based gallery owner Rafael Jablonka and the Cit Art Foundation, as well as the Nuremberg institute. Taaffe’s work is presented in a beautiful square room in which one can enjoy his highly intelligent work. By the way, this is a rather unique undertaking in Germany – Taaffe was once presented here in a retrospective in 2008 in Wolfsburg. But, with the exception of the Hamburger Kunsthalle, the Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg and the Sammlung Goetz, his works are not shown in other museums.
What is fantastic about Taaffe’s work is the combination of seeing, decoding and interpreting superior issues – with ornamental art. In this way, the exhibtion is unique and entices one to tackle a revision of Modernism. It might be a first step to concentrate on these five unusual paintings in Nuremberg in order to recognize that Modernism has features of ornamentality.
Neues Museum - Staatliches Museum für Kunst und Design in Nürnberg
90402 Nuremberg, Klarissenplatz
Tel: +49 911 240 200
Fax: +49 911 240 20 29
email: info@nmn.de
http://www.nmn.de/
Opening hours: Tue – Fri 10.00 - 20.00, Sat, Sun 10.00 - 18.00
Mehr Texte von translated and summarized by: Liz Wollner-Grandville
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270114
Neues Museum - Staatliches Museum für Kunst und Design in Nürnberg
90402 Nürnberg, Klarissenplatz
Tel: +49 911 240 200, Fax: +49 911 240 20 29
Email: info@nmn.de
http://www.nmn.de/
Öffnungszeiten: Di-So 10-18, Do 10-20 h
Neues Museum - Staatliches Museum für Kunst und Design in Nürnberg
90402 Nürnberg, Klarissenplatz
Tel: +49 911 240 200, Fax: +49 911 240 20 29
Email: info@nmn.de
http://www.nmn.de/
Öffnungszeiten: Di-So 10-18, Do 10-20 h
