Contributed by Talia Shiroma / It is safe to say that beauty has become an incidental quality in visual art over the last century, taking a back seat to, among other things, art’s expanded range of aesthetic values, its social and political dimensions, and capacity for novelty. So it was surprising to find, at Teak Ramos’s solo show “In Traditional Fashion” at Ulrik Gallery, a self-conscious display of visual delight. The exhibition featured 14 panels clad in white silk and tulle, which ran along the walls like errant pearls. The works are impassive, delicate, and thoughtfully constructed. They are lovely and empty forms.
Put another way, the works are highly decorative, and whether or not you liked the show may hinge on what you make of this fact. Ramos has constructed the pieces by applying the materials and techniques of dressmaking to the format of paintings. In an approach mirroring the relationship between clothing and the body, she machine-engraved the fiberboard panels with flowing lines and floral motifs and overlaid them with silk, such that the works took their form through the interaction of the two layers. One of the cleverest aspects of Ramos’s technique is her use of silk’s material properties to produce optical effects. In Something New 11, translucent silk both screens and reveals the carvings beneath, while the reflective quality of more opaque silk in Something New 04 discloses its underlying forms through light and shadow. The works are pleasing for their perceptual subtleties and sensuousness, which—in contrast to the immoderation that word can evoke—is delicate and understated.
The floral elements and lustrous materials Ramos employs recall an old debate about the role of the decorative in fine art, memorably signified by Clement Greenberg’s remark that “when the abstract artist grows tired, he becomes an interior decorator.” As though riffing on this notion, Ramos has taken motifs typically found in ornamental details, blown them up, and relocated them in compositions reminiscent of abstract painting. In principle, this provocation seems indebted to the Pattern and Decoration movement of the 1970s, which used craft’s functional associations to complicate the notion of autonomous art. Yet P&D embraced brash colors, sumptuous materiality, and kitsch, while Ramos’s panels are politely muted. Her work is also disengaged from the social content of decoration and craft that animated the movement. Instead, Ramos appears interested in her decorative forms insofar as they are visually pleasing, offering a light play with balance and shape, and what her pieces most resemble are tastefully designed, mass-produced goods.
This is partly due to the fact that Ramos’s primary methods are pastiche and collage, which inevitably incorporate the context of their borrowed forms. The designs allude mainly to Art Nouveau ornament and bridal wear, which point to the decorative’s historical associations with bourgeois adornment, but also to the revival of such styles as diluted commercial forms. Some of the motifs Ramos uses – in particular, the arabesques – echo the decorations found in mass-market ceiling tiles, embossed stationery, and wall decor. In that context, decoration is about eliciting desire, and beauty has the practical use of facilitating sales. These influences may converge most transparently in fashion and interior decor, from which Ramos has in turn derived inspiration for her materials and forms. In addition, her use of some of modern art’s reductive strategies, adopting the monochrome and exchanging detail for abstracted forms, reinforces the impression of mass-production. Simplification, after all, is also streamlining.
Both the trouble and fun of the show was that it leaned into formalist aesthetics and its much abjured overlap with the decorative. As with both of these categories, Ramos’s works are bereft of subject matter; their content is their form. As a group, their structuring idea seems to be about the experience of beauty–or, in most cases here, something that simply looks good. While some pieces differ little from flimsy commercial decor, others more persuasively assert visual delectation as an experience that stands on its own. The strongest pieces are simply those that are well designed. They achieve harmony through asymmetry and incorporate an element of material contrast that makes them feel completely fresh, as in Something New 11, Something New 07, and a set of three panels Something New 01, 02, and 03. The silver surfaces of the latter works, decorated with thinly incised, Art Nouveau-ish patterns, swing between effulgence and vacancy. These are smartly offset by linear cutouts along their borders, which balance the works’ glitz through the simplicity of the raw material. Works like these are absorbing for their intricacy, balance, and clever construction. They elicit a renewed appreciation for materiality and the creation of visual beauty. Yet they may also remind you that beauty for its own sake can be quite hollow. There was much to admire in this show, but not much to challenge you.
“Teak Ramos: In Traditional Fashion,” Ulrik Gallery, 175 Canal Street, Floor 3, New York, NY. September 6–October 19, 2024.
About the author: Talia Shiroma is an arts worker and writer living in Brooklyn.
NOTE: We’re in the third week of the Two Coats of Paint 2024 Year-end Fundraising Campaign! This year, we’re aiming for full participation from our readers and gallery friends. Your support means everything to us, and any contribution—big or small—will help keep the project thriving into 2025. Plus, it’s tax-deductible! Thank you for being such a vital part of our community and keeping the conversation alive. Click here to contribute.
