'Criminal Ornamentation' Yinka Shonibare CBE Curates the Arts Council Collection
The title of the exhibition is a provocative reference to the influential essay ‘Ornament and Crime' by early twentieth-century architect Adolf Loos, which condemns the use of decoration and craft. "Adolf Loos was clearly a man of his time in his snobbish revolutionary zeal to abandon ornamentation as he saw it as the pre-occupation of the working classes and degenerates", Shonibare explained.
Challenging such attitudes, Criminal Ornamentation brings together over eighty works that embrace colour, ornament and pattern. Reflecting Shonibare's own practice, the exhibition explores the use of decoration as a powerful means of social and political identification and expression.
Yinka Shonibare CBE will be in conversation with Southampton Art Gallery Curator of Art Clare Mitchell at the Art Gallery Lecture Theatre on Friday 28 June, 1.30-2.30pm.
To book, please phone: 023 8083 4536
28 June–28 September 2019
