{"id":6693,"date":"2018-03-16T11:34:23","date_gmt":"2018-03-16T15:34:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kolajmagazine.com\/content\/?p=6693"},"modified":"2018-03-22T07:47:59","modified_gmt":"2018-03-22T11:47:59","slug":"surface-depth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kolajmagazine.com\/content\/content\/collage-exhibitions\/surface-depth\/","title":{"rendered":"Surface\/Depth"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

COLLAGE ON VIEW<\/p>\n

Surface\/Depth: The Decorative after Miriam Schapiro
\nat the Museum of Arts & Design
\nin New York, New York, USA
\n22 March-9 September 2018<\/h2>\n

“Surface\/Depth: The Decorative After Miriam Schapiro” showcases twenty-nine collage paintings by the pioneering feminist artist Miriam Schapiro in conversation with twenty-eight works by nine contemporary artists: Sanford Biggers, Josh Blackwell, Edie Fake, Jeffrey Gibson, Judy Ledgerwood, Jodie Mack, Sara Rahbar, Ruth Root, and Jasmin Sian. Bringing into focus the key, but unheralded, role Schapiro played in the reframing of craft and decoration in the American art world, this juxtaposition of historic and contemporary work highlights ways in which the decorative continues to be utilized as a critical tool in art today.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs an institution founded to combat the dismissal of craft as a lesser creative practice and that from its beginning supported the careers of women artists, there couldn\u2019t be a better time for MAD to highlight Miriam Schapiro,\u201d said Elissa Auther, MAD\u2019s Windgate Research and Collections Curator. \u201cMany contemporary artists outside of the studio-craft tradition of the 1950s and 1960s now work across the fields of art and craft, openly using techniques and materials traditionally associated with craft in ways unheard of even a decade ago, and Schapiro is an important, but unacknowledged, source for that phenomenon.\u201d<\/p>\n

Historically marginalized as ornament, pattern, or craft, decoration is often dismissed as mere surface, an attractive object with no underlying depth or meaning. To this day, to dismiss a work of art as \u201cdecorative\u201d is to judge it as minor, reveling in surface-level expression over any commitment to intellectual rigor or cultural critique. In the early 1970s, within the context of the women\u2019s art movement, Schapiro reappropriated the decorative in a new type of work she would come to call femmage<\/em> (a combination of feminine and collage), a collage-painting hybrid inspired by women\u2019s domestic arts and handicrafts.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Her objective in embracing the decorative was to catalyze a seismic transformation in the perception of materials, processes, and styles rooted in craft, women\u2019s experience in the home, and everyday forms of making, recasting practices like embroidery, crochet, paper crafts, and even decoupage as legitimately artistic. For Schapiro, the absence of such work from the cultural record was a reflection of the broader patriarchal devaluation of the woman artist, and she viewed her work as a feminist intervention in the history of art.<\/p>\n

In “Surface\/Depth”, Schapiro\u2019s twenty-nine works on view are exhibited alongside a range of archival material, including her writings, fabric swatches, costume jewelry, and women\u2019s needlework, all of which contextualize her invention of the femmage<\/em> by illustrating the rich vein of material culture she mined.<\/p>\n

Biggers, Blackwell, Fake, Gibson, Ledgerwood, Mack, Rahbar, Root, and Sian expand Schapiro\u2019s initial exploration of the decorative as a language of abstraction tied to the personal and the political. Like Schapiro, these artists refuse received opinion of the decorative as artistically trivial and use abstract, decorative elements to address a range of topics and concerns\u2014from gender, racial, and sexual identity to issues of aesthetic hierarchy, migration, community, and loss\u2014exposing the hollowness of the surface\/depth divide and the separation of appearance from meaning.<\/p>\n

(adapted from the museum’s press materials)<\/p>\n

\n

INFORMATION<\/h3>\n

Museum of Arts & Design<\/strong>
\n2 Columbus Circle
\nNew York, New York 10019 USA
\n(212) 299-7777<\/p>\n

Hours:<\/strong>
\nTuesday-Wednesday, 10AM-6PM
\nThursday, 10AM-9PM
\nFriday-Sunday, 10AM-6PM<\/p>\n

MAP<\/a> | WEBSITE<\/a>\u00a0| FACEBOOK<\/a><\/p>\n

Image: top<\/strong>
\nThe Beauty of Summer<\/em>
\nby Miriam Schapiro
\n50″x70″
\nacrylic, fabric on canvas
\n1973-1974
\n\u00a9 Miriam Schapiro\/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
\nCourtesy Eric Firestone Gallery<\/p>\n

Image: center<\/strong>
\nFlag #4 Champions<\/em>
\nby Sara Rahbar
\n69″x39″
\nmixed media
\n2006-2013
\nCourtesy of the artist and Carbon 12<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

COLLAGE ON VIEW Surface\/Depth: The Decorative after Miriam Schapiro at the Museum of Arts & Design in New York, New York, USA 22 March-9 September 2018 “Surface\/Depth: The Decorative After Miriam Schapiro” showcases twenty-nine collage paintings by the pioneering feminist…<\/p>\n

Read more →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":6694,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"gallery","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/kolajmagazine.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/miriam-schapiro-the-beauty-of-summer.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2QTD7-1JX","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":17452,"url":"https:\/\/kolajmagazine.com\/content\/content\/collage-exhibitions\/collage-at-crafttexas\/","url_meta":{"origin":6693,"position":0},"title":"Collage at CraftTexas","author":"Christopher Byrne","date":"23 October 2025","format":"gallery","excerpt":"Forest Trees by Selena Dixon96\"x84\"; acrylic paint, used book pages (primarily old dictionaries), acrylic medium, synthetic substrate, and sewing machine thread; 2023. 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