Ornament and Crime, the Greeks and the Monochrome.

I often ask myself why, when choosing between Abstraction and Figurativism, I always choose Geometry and Modernism first. But being keen on Photography and Fashion uncovers an interest on all things figurative, one cannot avoid it. From the painting of Ophelia to Sybille Bergemann, the images with a representational interpretation are (or at least will be, since I barely started to make photographies) part of my likings. They are easier to understand, easier to reject when not liked, and they arrive sooner to our brain.

And it scares me somehow that the message of the flying polyhedrones and spatial geometries which I want to transmit through my blog, my shop and the things I sell there is missunderstood.

So first of all, why am I scared of recognise this fact? It comes from Adolf Loos and his theories accusing ornaments of obstructing the architectural speech of a building. This controversial book was the beginning of the end of all superfluous decoration on facades. The same as the first monochrome paintings made by Rodchenko killed Painting and all its representativeness of the world. They lead the way to Minimalism and we followed them.

I would say that both the polyhedron and the fashion model are a valid discourse for my blog or my tumblr, and none of them to the detriment of the other. But at least, each of them with a different function. And here lies the difference of both, its function inside the work I'll be developing in this near future.

When designing Architecture, the ancient Greeks used to decorate only the non-structural parts of the building. They would have never decorated the cylinder of a column, the same as they only decorated the metopes and not the triglyphs. If we say Figurativism is the metope and Abstraction is the trygliph, both are there on the Temple, playing its function, and they don't try to do what they're not meant to do.

And that's why the structural part of this blog/shop is held on polyhedrons and shapes and lines and colors, and in between you may just find some photographs and thoughts.

Recalling Lord Dunsany's book The King of Elfland's Daughter, we could also say Figurativism are the fields we know and Abstraction would be the land from which we may only hear in song. And I would like to be the little fox who could pass through the border when she wanted. I like that.

Did I get too thoughtful? Have a nice week!

Pin It