Décor à Brussels

At the Villa Empain  in Brussels, “Décor” explores the evolution of ornament in Western culture, showcasing works of artists that refused to emancipate art from decoration.

Reflecting on the role of art and ornament, and its evolution from the pre-industrial era, the Boghossian Foundation assembles artists that do not participate in the Western anxiety of emancipating art from decoration.

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Villa Empain , “Décor”, Brussels, 2016

Villa Empain , “Décor”, Brussels, 2016

Villa Empain , “Décor”, Brussels, 2016

On the contrary they embrace the decorative as a fundamental aspect of the plastic arts and see a political potential in operating with it. These approaches also open a new dialogue with traditions of decoration and ornamentation that are rooted in Eastern aesthetics.

In Western societies, before the advent of the modern era, art decorated architecture, spaces and environments, catalysing social interactions between people. With the inception of modernity around 1800, the idea of a decorative artwork became a contradiction in terms. Painting was separated from architecture and became autonomous, thereby abandoning decoration as its primary function. Historically, this was the end of the decorative and integrated aesthetic object and the advent of the modern idea of the work of art.

Modernity, in this sense, is not only represented as a set of new artistic styles, forms, and content. It signifies something even more fundamental, a change in the mode of how aesthetic objects function and how they communicate: while a decorative element attracts the gaze only to then release it again into the surroundings, the artwork attracts the gaze like a magnet to arrest it.

Within the context of Villa Empain – itself a place that is highly marked by decoration – “Décor” is an exhibition about the decorative in modern and contemporary art and at the same time is simply a decoration of the Villa. Artist included: Carl Andre, Marcel Broodthaers, Daniel Buren, Latifa Echakhch, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Pierre Huyghe, Waqas Khan, Jeff Koons, Milena Muzquiz, Jeroen de Rijke/Willem de Rooij, Rosemarie Trockel et Andy Warhol.

until 29 January
Décor
curated by Tino Sehgal, Dorothea von Hantelmann and Asad Raza
Boghossian Foundation – Villa Empain 
avenue Franklin Roosevelt 67, Brussels

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