But if the crime is beautiful… part 1 | Composition with ornament and object by Lauren Kalman

Artist list

Lauren Kalman

Detroit based Lauren Kalman‘s But if the Crime is Beautiful…. is an ongoing project that is a hybrid of functional objects, craft objects, sculpture, photography, video, and installation. Consisting of fabricated and found objects combined with the body to produce sculptural compositions, these sculptures are then documented to exist as photographs.

The title of the series, But if the Crime is Beautiful…, is derived from Adolf Loos’ 1910 lecture Ornament and Crime. With “but if the ornament is beautiful” he is referring to the naive (in his view) population’s defense of ornament as long as it is beautiful. His proposition is that ornament is regressive and primitive, and that in his contemporary society only degenerates and criminals are decorated, including women. The “crime” in Kalman’s work points not only to the decorated but also to deviant sexuality and female sexuality, especially 19th and early 20th century constructions, which our currently understanding of sexuality is built upon. Loos’ writings on architecture and functional art helped to define the principals of the Modern Architecture movement and eventually the Bauhaus. The influence of these movements permeates the contemporary built environment and therefore impacts our psychological and bodily relationship to space and objects.