Adolf Loos' Ornament and Crime

2002

Josiah McElheny American, born 1966

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Adolf Loos' Ornament and Crime: 1 of Collection Gallery

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About the Artwork

In this work, based on "Ornament and Crime," a treatise by Adolf Loos protesting the decorative excesses of the Austrian Art Nouveau movement that became one of the founding statements of twentieth-century architecture and design, McElheny was looking at the intersections between history, design, and fiction. Adolf Loos’ Ornament and Crime is inspired by the casework in the American Bar in Vienna, designed by Loos in 1908, the same year the essay was written. The glass vessels are recreations of classic designs by Loos and others that would have been used in such a setting. But while Loos’s sumptuous interior blended mirrors, marble and mahogany into a richly colorful and pattered room, McElheny’s interpretation of it is a uniform, affectless white that takes Loos’s idea of suppressing decoration to its logical extreme: in a world made white there is no gradation, no individuation, and ultimately no authorship. From Bulletin of the Detroit Institute of Arts 89 (2015)

Title Adolf Loos' Ornament and Crime

Artwork Date 2002

Artist Josiah McElheny

Life Dates born 1966

Nationality Please note: Definitions for nationality may vary significantly, depending on chronology and world events. Some definitions include: Belonging to a people having a common origin based on a geography and/or descent and/or tradition and/or culture and/or religion and/or language, or sharing membership in a legally defined nation. American

Culture Please note: Cultures may be defined by the language, customs, religious beliefs, social norms, and material traits of a group. Unknown

Medium Blown glass with overlay of clear glass, wood, light bulbs and paint

Dimensions Overall: 49 × 60 × 10 1/2 inches (124.5 × 152.4 × 26.7 cm)

Classification Sculpture

Department Contemporary Art after 1950

Credit Museum Purchase, Catherine Kresge Dewey Fund; the Janis and William Wetsman Foundation Fund in honor of Rebecca Hart

Accession Number This unique number is assigned to an individual artwork as part of the cataloguing process at the time of entry into the permanent collection. Most frequently, accession numbers begin with the year in which the artwork entered the museum’s holdings. For example, 2008.3 refers to the year of acquisition and notes that it was the 3rd of that year. The DIA has a few additional systems—no longer assigned—that identify specific donors or museum patronage groups. 2003.19

Markings

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Provenance

The artist

Donald Young Gallery, Chicago, artist representative

2003, by purchase to DIA 2/28/2003

For more information on provenance and its important function in the museum, please visit:

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Exhibition History

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Published References

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We regularly update our object record as new research and findings emerge, and we welcome your feedback for correction and/or improvement.

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Catalogue Raisoneé

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Credit Line for Reproduction

Josiah McElheny, Adolf Loos' Ornament and Crime, 2002, blown glass with overlay of clear glass, wood, light bulbs and paint. Detroit Institute of Arts, Museum Purchase, Catherine Kresge Dewey Fund; the Janis and William Wetsman Foundation Fund in honor of Rebecca Hart, 2003.19.