In 1973, gallerist Tibor de Nagy gave Joyce Kozloff a name. His voice quivered as he informed her that Clement Greenberg had simply left the again room after giving a searing assessment of her newest work. Greenberg had scoffed on the artist’s “Three Facades” (1973), a portray based mostly on the wealthy tapestry of interlocking bricks and tiles on Churrigueresque church facades in Mexico, and mentioned that it “looked like ladies’ embroidery” — as if that was a nasty factor. Kozloff informed us that “Tibor freaked out” and requested her “to take it away.”
Joyce Kozloff, “Striped Cathedral” (1977), acrylic on canvas, 72 x 180 inches (~1.8 x 4.6 m) (picture courtesy the artist)
Greenberg had unwittingly dismissed the primary of the artist’s work in a serious artwork motion of which she was a key founding member: Sample and Ornament, often known as “P&D,” which grew out of the flowering folks revival and feminist protest period of the Seventies. Fed up with hard-edge abstraction and minimalism favored by the White males who dominated the artwork world, P&D leaned into lush ornamental surfaces, cultural adornment, and unapologetically artful aesthetics.
After all, it was critics like Greenberg whom P&D was revolting towards. He’s cited twice in a 1978 article Kozloff co-wrote with Valerie Jaudon, “Art Hysterical Notions of Progress and Culture.” Printed within the feminist artwork journal Heresies (of which Kozloff was additionally a founding member), they wrote that in “rereading the basic texts of Modern Art … we discovered a disturbing belief system based on the moral superiority of the art of Western civilization.” They “came to realize that the prejudice against the decorative has a long history and is based on hierarchies: fine art above decorative art, Western art above non-Western art, men’s art above women’s art.”
Joyce Kozloff, “Three Facades” (1973), acrylic on canvas, 78 x 60 inches (~2 x 1.5 m) (picture courtesy the artist)
Fortunately, Kozloff’s profession wasn’t as much as Clement Greenberg. Kozloff went on to have dozens of reveals, beautify over a dozen buildings and transit programs with public artworks over the a long time, and encourage new generations of artists to unabashedly lean into decoration. As soon as an lively member of the peace protests of the Nineteen Sixties, she has additionally continued her political activism, which within the twenty first century has turn out to be extra express in her work. Her all-over sample work have morphed into detailed maps, from Civil Conflict battle plans exploding with viruses to aeronautical charts dotted with factors that the USA has bombed.
Joyce Kozloff, “Battle of Appomattox Court House” (2021), acrylic on canvas, 34 x 42 1/2 inches (~86.4 x 108 cm) (picture courtesy the artist)
On this episode of the Hyperallergic Podcast, you’ll hear the interview our Editor-in-Chief Hrag Vartanian recorded with Kozloff in 2021, simply after the opening of With Pleasure: Sample and Ornament in American Artwork 1972–1985 at Bard Faculty’s Hessel Museum of Artwork, which the establishment referred to as “first full-scale scholarly North American survey” of the P&D motion. They discuss every thing from her mom’s embroidery to her travels in Turkey and Iran that impressed her artwork. You’ll additionally hear from Hyperallergic Employees Author Maya Pontone, who reported this previous yr about Kozloff’s iconic public art work in Cambridge’s Harvard Sq. prepare station that’s at present susceptible to disappearing. And when you’ve been listening carefully this season, you’ll acknowledge some recurring characters: Columbia professor Stephen Greene; the Heresies collective; Joyce’s companion, author Max Kozoff, and; after all, Clement Greenberg.
Works from three of Kozloff’s newest collection, Uncivil Wars, Boys’ Artwork, and Social Research, are on view within the Map Room at Argosy Guide Retailer (116 East 59th Avenue, Higher East Facet, Manhattan) by way of January 25, 2025.
Subscribe to Hyperallergic on Apple Podcasts, and anyplace else you take heed to podcasts. Take heed to the dialog together with pictures of the artworks on YouTube.
