Criminal Centennial, earthenware with slip •
2013 marks the centennial of Adolf Loos’ essay, “Ornament & Crime”, first published in Les Cahiers d’aujourd’hui #5, June 1913. Loos wrote, “The first ornament that came into being, the cross, had an erotic origin. The first work of art, the first artistic action of the first artist daubing on the wall, was in order to rid himself of his natural excesses. A horizontal line: the reclining woman. A vertical line: the man who penetrates her. The man who created it felt the same urge as Beethoven, he experienced the same joy that Beethoven felt when he created the Ninth Symphony. But the man of our time who daubs the walls with erotic symbols to satisfy an inner urge is a criminal or a degenerate.” I mark the occasion in lines decorated with Loos’ favorite ornament, marble.
2013, Pollock Gallery, SMU, Dallas, TX, & Winter Street Studios (NCECA), Houston, TX