Open School with Svante Tirén

Ornament Matters — Revisiting the Art and Politics of Decoration

Can ornament have meaning? What happens when we treat decoration not just as surface, but as an active expression of values and ideas? The topic of ornament has recently been subject to a renewed interest within everything from art history and design to psychology and queer theory. While neglected as a theoretical field for almost a century, the study of ornament offers new questions and critical methods of understanding visual culture in the 21st century. In this lecture, examples from the history of ornament are combined with contemporary perspectives on how to approach ornament today.

Svante Helmbaek Tirén is an independant curator, writer and artist based in Stockholm. Specializing in the history of design and architecture, he lectures on topics like decoration, patterns and ornament. He has been guest teaching at Konstfack since 2017 and previously worked with Moderna museet and Färgfabriken.