วันอาทิตย์ที่ 27 มกราคม พ.ศ. 2556

Adolf Loos: Ornament and Crime (1908)


Art appears to take part in every historical period. It is part of culture, and it is what culture has created. It even shows the development of every culture. Periods of art were (obviously) distinguished by their appearance. Ornamentation and decoration are what makes art appeared differently. It’s like an invention for senses.

Saying “ornament is a crime” is not completely right or wrong. It depends on what aspect does ornament involve in. Adolf Loos obviously against ornamentation in every aspect. Loos ‘aggressively’ depicted on why ornament is a crime, which some explanations are quite ridiculous. Ornament or anti-ornament is not a factor to evaluate how successful one can be. Richer or poorer. Cultivated or not. People from different culture and different acknowledgment, would have different appreciation and preference in everything.

But Loos did point out a good reason to not be overly-praise-all-the-ornament. He said that ornament is a crime against economy. Ornamentation does require exhaustive labour, more money, and materials are wasted. Decorated piece need to waste on something before it could pleasure the eyes. For our decade, it might be more useful to get an IKEA plain, recycled coffee table than a crafted whole trunk of teak coffee table that work functionally the same. It is better because of the crisis of resource reduction that we are facing now.  Moreover, mass production is way more suitable for the amount of population.            

It seems to be that our “Modern” generation is appreciating the “art of nothing” and mass-produced outcomes. Modernism cut out all the connection between art and culture. It mostly doesn’t (or doesn’t want to) show the trace of past or future. No sign of history and how the development begun nor how it would develop further. If our generation prefer to stop developing our own style of art. That would probably a discontinuance of the history of art. Everything from now on would be ‘nothing’. 

Korapin A.

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