Print
Every now and then over the past half-century, wallpaper has stepped forward to play an unexpected leading role in art.
Yes, wallpaper.
In the 1960s there was Andy Warhol’s frilly pink cows, which queered Picasso’s self-identification as art’s macho bull. In the ‘70s, Tina Girouard went around the bend of Conceptual art, replacing rigorously mathematical wall drawings with geometric bits of grandma’s parlor décor. Later, Jim Isermann affixed abstract vinyl decals to museum walls, transforming a high art institution into a domestic home for acute DIY craft.
Now, at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, wallpaper is a linchpin in a marvelously multidimensional installation by Cauleen Smith.