11/30/2022 0 Comments The mediation of ornament![]() ![]() If there is something telling about the tradition of stylization of organic forms into dutiful alignment and unwavering uniformity, then there is added significance in their translation into ceramic materials. The idiomatic variations and the dramatic shift in scale coalesce into a pleasurably disorienting artifice, which is only accentuated by the Fiestaware palette of colors. Geological formations blur into stylistic conventions, which in turn blur into nostalgic associations. Each form in the series is distinct, but the variations amongst them hover uncannily between visual memory and Jungian archetype. The miniaturization of nature has long been a prevalent strategy in the decorative arts, and Nielsen pushes it to an extreme with her “Mountains.” This series consists of objects that could fit comfortably within the confines of a kitchen windowsill, and it brings to mind Susan Stewart’s observation that the miniature “presents a diminutive and thereby manipulatable version of experience, a version which is domesticated and protected from contamination.” Nielsen’s mountains do not appear as a continuous landscape, but rather as separate modules. Nielsen’s creations are purposefully enigmatic, and therein lay their strength. The aesthetic conventions are scrutinized, but the evidence is nonetheless inconclusive. She deftly identifies constituent details and tactics of decorative arts traditions and methodically isolates them in order to study their semiological DNA, so to speak. Yet none of these strategies aptly describe Nielsen’s methodology. Over the years, traditional ornamentation has in various ways been appropriated, distilled, deconstructed and subverted by contemporary artists. ![]() ![]() Her work invariably displays a savvy manipulation of coded vocabularies of form, and a talent for magnifying the slippage between a symbol and its traditional meaning. In “The Mediation of Ornament,” Oleg Grabar suggests that we consider the motifs and patterns of the decorative arts to be “intermediaries.” They may seem to serve merely as embellishment, but he likens them to “catalytic agents, or code carriers in genetics or biology.” If this is true, then Marianne Nielsen is engaged in some genre of cryptology. ![]()
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