Joyce Kozloff (born 1942) is an American artist known for her paintings, murals, and public art installations. She was one of the original members of the
Pattern and Decoration movement and an early artist in the 1970s
feminist art movement, including as a founding member of the Heresies collective.
She has been active in the women's and peace movements throughout her life. Since the early 1990s, her work has drawn extensively on
cartography and
patterns.
Personal life and education
Joyce Blumberg was born to Adele Rosenberg and Leonard Blumberg on December 14, 1942 in
Somerville, New Jersey. Leonard, born in New Jersey, was an attorney. Adele was active in community organizations. Both of her parents' families had emigrated from Lithuania. She had two younger brothers.[1]
For us, there weren't women in the galleries and museums, so we formed our own galleries, we curated our own exhibitions, we formed our own publications, we mentored one another, we even formed schools for feminist art. We examined the content of the history of art, and we began to make different kinds of art forms based on our experiences as women. So it was both social and something even beyond; in our case, it came back into our own studios.[3]
In the summer of 1973 Kozloff lived in Mexico. She visited Morocco in 1975 and Turkey in 1978. During her visits she studied the countries'
decorative traditions and ornaments. In the 1970s, she observed that the
decorative arts were the domain of women and non-western artists, and wrote that the hierarchy among the arts had privileged the production of European and American men, fueling her position as a feminist and inspired her interest in
pattern design.[1] With
Valerie Jaudon, she co-authored the widely anthologized "Art Hysterical Notions of Progress and Culture" (1978), in which they explained how they thought sexist and racist assumptions underlaid Western art history discourse. They reasserted the value of ornamentation and aesthetic beauty – qualities assigned to the feminine sphere.[7][8][9]
Beginning in 1973, wishing to break down the western hierarchy between "
high art" and decoration, Kozloff created large paintings, drawing upon worldwide patterns, juxtaposing ornamental passages across an expansive field. In 1975, she began to meet with artists Miriam Schapiro,
Tony Robbin,
Robert Zakanitch,
Robert Kushner, Valerie Jaudon and others pursuing related ideas; they formed the
Pattern and Decoration movement.[12]
During the late 1970s, she produced An Interior Decorated, a travelling installation composed of hanging silkscreen textile panels; hand painted, glazed tile pilasters; lithographs on Chinese silk paper; and a tiled floor composed of thousands of individually executed images on interlocking stars and hexagons. The project was redesigned for every space in which it was exhibited in 1979 and 1980. Just as her paintings had nonwestern origins, for this installation, she compiled a personal, visual anthology of the decorative arts from dozens of sources, including Caucasian
kilims,
İznik and Catalan tiles, Seljuk brickwork, and
Native American pottery.[1][12][13] Critic
Carrie Rickey wrote that the installation was "where painting meets architecture, where art meets craft, where personal commitment meets public art".[1]
Public art
Kozloff became interested in public art while studying under
Robert Lepper at
Carnegie Mellon. He taught the Oakland Project, in which students went out into the Oakland neighborhood and made art documenting the infrastructure, buildings and people. She said, "That was my initiation into public art – into the world outside".[14] One of her first works of public art, a mural in the
Harvard Square subway station in
Cambridge, was the result of a competition. Most of her other public projects were directly commissioned. Her initial large scale pieces were composed of interlocking patterns of glass mosaic and/or ceramic tiles, an extension of her earlier gallery art.
She began incorporating images from the cities' histories to make the works site specific. For instance, at the
Suburban Station in
Philadelphia, she substituted an image of William Penn for the Good Shepherd in an appropriation of the Byzantine Tomb of
Galla Placidia in
Ravenna.[15] Her public works were often collaborations, with input from the public, community boards, architects, and arts patrons.[16]
Kozloff created 16 public art projects,[15] including:
1983 - Bay Area Victorian, Bay Area Deco, Bay Area Funk, at
San Francisco Airport's International Terminal[3][17]
1995 - Around the World on the 44th Parallel, Memorial Library, Mankato State University[24]
1997 - Four cartographic representations based on ancient charts of the Chesapeake Bay area,
Reagan National Airport, Washington, DC. It is a marble mosaic.[3][25]
2001 - a floor piece for Chubu Cultural Center,
Kurayoshi, Japan[26]
2003 - Dreaming: The Passage of Time, United States Consulate, Istanbul, Turkey.[27]
She was interested in public art because it makes art accessible to everyone, and not just the public and private collectors.[1] She said she became disheartened after the 1990s political "culture wars", feeling she would have to censor her creative expression to create acceptable "safe art", and stopped vying for public art commissions.[24]
Artist's books
In the late 1980s she produced a series of 32 watercolors entitled Patterns of Desire—Pornament is Crime, published by Hudson Hills Press in 1990 with an introductory essay by
Linda Nochlin. This book by a feminist artist juxtaposed the obsessive nature of both decoration and pornography in many traditions, to comic and revelatory effect.[28] A founding member of the New York activist group, Artists Against the War (2003), Kozloff has been increasingly preoccupied with that theme. In 2001, she began Boy's Art, a series of twenty-four drawings based on illustrations, diagrams, and maps depicting historic battles, over which she collaged copies of her son Nikolas’s childhood war drawings and details from old master paintings.[29] An oversized artist’s book of these works was published by D.A.P./Distributed Art Publishers in 2003 with an introductory essay by Robert Kushner. In 2010, Charta Books Ltd. published Kozloff’s third artist’s book, China is Near, which includes a conversation with Barbara Pollack. For this publication, the artist photographed the China most accessible to her,
New York’s Chinatown, a few blocks from her home, as well as other Chinatowns within range. She copied old charts of the
Silk Road and downloaded online maps of all the places in the world called China. It’s a bright, glossy mash-up of contemporary
kitsch and historic commerce, a guide to the global highway.[30]
Map themes
Kozloff has utilized mapping since the early 1990s as a structure for her long-time passions - history, geography, popular arts and culture. In Los Angeles Becoming Mexico City Becoming Los Angeles (1993) and Imperial Cities (1994) she painted cities she knew, overlaying images and patterns reflective of their colonial pasts. She subsequently examined bodies of water such as the
Baltic Sea in Bodies of Water, the
Mekong and
Amazon Rivers in Mekong and memory and Calvino’s Cities on the Amazon (1995–1997). In her series Knowledge (1998–1999), consisting of 65 small (8 x 10") frescoes and six tabletop globes, she depicted the inaccuracies of maps from earlier times, particularly during the Age of Discovery, to reveal the arbitrary nature of what can be known.[31]
In 1999–2000, during Kozloff’s year-long fellowship at the
American Academy in Rome, she executed Targets, a walk-in globe 9 feet (2.7 m) in diameter made of 24
gore-shaped sections. She painted an aerial map on the inside surface of each section to depict a site
bombed by the United States military between the years 1945 and 2000.[32][33] Upon entering, the visitor is completely surrounded, and if he/she makes a sound there is an echo amplified by the enclosed space. Two multi-panel, 16-foot (4.9 m)-long works followed, each in the form of the flattened gores of a globe (2002): Spheres of Influence (Kozloff’s "terrestrial piece") and Dark and Light Continents (her "celestial piece").[34]
For several years, Kozloff worked on a huge installation about the history of
western colonialism, shown at Thetis in the Venice Arsenale (2006), Voyages + Targets. She painted islands across the world on 64
Venetian Carnival masks situated inside windows with light streaming through their eyes; hanging from the ceiling and along the brick walls, there were banners (Voyages: Carnevale, Voyages: Maui, and Voyages: Kaho’olawe) with maps of islands in the Pacific and jazzy carnival imagery as it has morphed around the planet. Beginning in 2006, Kozloff’s ongoing tondi (round paintings) began with Renaissance cosmological charts crisscrossed by the tracks of satellites in space,[35] an imaginary projection of future (star) wars (the days and hours and moments of our lives,Helium on the Moon,Revolver).[36]
"Descartes' Heart" is based on the heart-shaped map, Cosmographia universalis ab Orontio olin descripta, by Renaissance cartographer Giovanni Cimerlino (Verona, 1566). On the top is a totally wacky[clarification needed] map called Mechanical Universe by Descartes (1644). The tondi were followed by an 18-foot (5.5 m)-long
triptych, The Middle East: Three Views (2010), a projection of the contested areas in that region during the Roman era, the Cold War, and currently. The maps, based on photographs taken by NASA’s
Hubble Space Telescope, float in deep space among the stars, as if they had been dislodged from the earth.[citation needed]
In 2011-2012, Kozloff completed JEEZ, a 12’ x 12’ painting based on the Ebstorf map, a 13th - century circular mappa mundi. It depicted Biblical stories alongside pagan myths within a vision of the world as it was then known. Christ’s body served as a symbolic and literal frame. She drew upon a wide range of artistic practices, incorporating 125 images of Christ from worldwide sources. Archetypal figures accumulate, morphing from holy portraits into a rogue’s gallery of mismatched characters.[37] Its companion, The Tempest, was completed in 2014, a 10’ x 10’ work based on a Chinese 18th century world map, in which the Great Wall traverses the upper levels and turbulent seas surround the land mass. Applied to the surface, there are collaged excerpts from more than 40 years of her art, as well as 3D miniature globes.[37] These two playful pieces explore eastern and western systems for representing the world.
From 2013-2015, Kozloff united the patterns and maps by reinventing two 1977 artists’ books, If I Were a Botanist and If I Were an Astronomer: their pages were based on geometric Islamic star patterns. She expanded them to mural scale, layered with outtakes from earlier projects. Their dense, saturated color and joyful aura disguise the embedded political content, visible on closer inspection.[38] And then she discovered a cache of her childhood drawings at her parents’ home, created between ages 9–11, which brought her further back in time. She incorporated these drawings, many of which are cartographic, into paintings of early maps (Girlhood, 2017). From their different stages of life, the young girl and the adult woman began to shift back and forth from 1950s America to the present.[39]
In 2018, Kozloff began work on a General Services Administration commission for a new federal courthouse in Greenville, SC. There she saw Confederate flags waving in graveyards alongside monuments to the rebel leaders.[40] This triggered her Uncivil Wars series, 2020-2021, which incorporates US Civil War battle maps - created by officers and soldiers from both the Confederate and Union armies - to depict a history that is currently still contested. Viruses erupt throughout the maps, reflecting the pandemic that locked down state, national, and international borders - and symbolizing the viral racism and xenophobia that permeate our country.[40][41]
Kozloff has had group and solo exhibitions since 1970 in many US cities, including New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Washington, DC[64][65][66][67] She had a traveling exhibition with her husband Max, "Crossed Purposes", that started in Youngstown, Ohio and traveled to eight other museums and university galleries in the US from 1998 to 2000.[66][68] International exhibitions include Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Argentina, and Denmark.[67]
Most recently, Kozloff's work has been included in several national and international museum exhibitions focusing on the
Pattern and Decoration movement: With Pleasure: Pattern and Decoration in American Art 1972-1985,
Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA (2019-2020); Less is a Bore: Maximalist Art & Design,
Institute for Contemporary Art, Boston, MA (2019); Pattern and Decoration: Ornament as Promise, Ludwig Forum, Aachen, Germany, Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Vienna, Austria, and Ludwig Museum, Budapest, Hungary (2018-2019); Pattern, Decoration & Crime,
MAMCO, Geneva, Switzerland, and
Le Consortium, Dijon, France (2018-2019).
Kozloff is represented by DC Moore Gallery in New York City and has been exhibiting there since 1997.[66][69]
Publications
Joyce Kozloff. China Is Near. Interview by Barbara Pollack. Milano: Charta, 2010.
Joyce Kozloff. Boys' Art. Introduction by Robert Kushner. New York: Distributed Art Publishers, Inc., 2003.
Joyce Kozloff. Patterns of Desire. Introduction by Linda Nochlin. New York: Hudson Hills Press, 1990.
Joyce Kozloff and Zucker, Barbara. “The Women’s Movement: Still a ‘source of strength’ or ‘one big bore’?” ARTnews, April 1976, 48-50.
Joyce Kozloff. “Thoughts on My Art”. Name Book I. Chicago: Name Gallery, 1977, 63-68.
Joyce Kozloff. “An Ornamented Joke”. Artforum, December 1986.
Joyce Kozloff. “The Kudzu Effect (or the rise of a new academy)”. Public Art Review, Fall/Winter 1996, 41.
Joyce Kozloff. “Portals”. Public Art Dialogue. Abingdon, Oxon, UK: Taylor & Francis, 2014.
Bender, Susan (2001). The world according to the newest and most exact observations : mapping art + science. Berry, Ian., Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery. [Saratoga Springs, N.Y.]: Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery at Skidmore College.
ISBN0-9708790-1-6.
OCLC49039167.
Brodsky, Judith K.;
Olin, Ferris (2006). How American women artists invented postmodernism, 1970-1975. New Brunswick, NJ: Margery Somers Foster Center, Mabel Smith Douglass Library.
OCLC85257667.
Broude, Norma;
Gerrard, Mary D. (2007). Claiming space : some American feminist originators : November 6, 2007-January 27, 2008. Katzen American University Museum, College of Arts & Sciences.
OCLC608810428.
Burkard, Lene; Ohrt, Karsten (2001). Patterns : between object and arabesque = Mønstring : mellem arabesk og objekt. Kunsthallen Brandts Klædefabrik. Odense: Kunsthallen Brandts Klædefabrik.
ISBN87-7766-111-7.
OCLC61094423.
Butler, Cornelia H.; Mark, Lisa Gabrielle (2007). WACK! : art and the feminist revolution. Museum of Contemporary Art (Los Angeles, Calif.). Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
ISBN978-0-914357-99-5.
OCLC73743482.
Castleman, Riva (1980). Printed art : a view of two decades. Castleman, Riva., Museum of Modern Art (New York, N.Y.). New York, N.Y.: Museum of Modern Art.
ISBN0-87070-531-8.
OCLC6446675.
Harmon, Katharine A., 1960- (2009). The map as art : contemporary artists explore cartography. Clemans, Gayle, 1968-. New York: Princeton Architectural Press.
ISBN978-1-56898-762-0.
OCLC234257201.{{
cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (
link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (
link)
Harmon, Katharine A., 1960- (2010). You are here : personal geographies and other maps of the imagination. Princeton Architectural Press.
ISBN978-1-56898-430-8.
OCLC917790341.{{
cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (
link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (
link)
Heartney, Eleanor (2001). Joyce Kozloff : Targets. DC Moore Gallery.
OCLC741994537.
Johnston, Patricia A., 1954- (1985). Joyce Kozloff, visionary ornament : Boston University Art Gallery, February 20-April 6, 1986. Herrera, Hayden., Gouma-Peterson, Thalia., Boston University. Art Gallery. Boston, Mass.: The Gallery.
ISBN0-87270-058-5.
OCLC12948044.{{
cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (
link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (
link)
Kardon, Janet (1979). The decorative impulse. Mandeville Art Gallery. Minneapolis College of Art and Design. Philadelphia: Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania.
ISBN0-88454-051-0.
OCLC5457067.
Kardon, Janet (1980). Drawings, the pluralist decade, 39th Venice Biennale, 1980/United States Pavilion/1 June-30 September 1980. The Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania.
ISBN0-88454-054-5.
OCLC7070845.
Lippard, Lucy R. (2007). Joyce Kozloff : voyages. Kozloff, Joyce, D.C. Moore Gallery. New York.
ISBN978-0-9774965-7-0.
OCLC191736003.{{
cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (
link)
Meyer, Ruth K. (1978). Arabesque : Joyce Kozloff, Robert Kushner, Kim MacConnel, Rodney Ripps, Barbara Schwartz, Ned Smyth. Cincinnati [OH]: Contemporary Arts Center.
OCLC920987144.
Munro, Eleanor C. (2006). Joyce Kozloff : exterior and interior cartographies. Regina Gouger Miller Gallery.; Kenyon College. Olin Library. Pittsburgh, PA.
OCLC170965343.{{
cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (
link)
Pollack, Barbara (Barbara Ruth) (2010). Joyce Kozloff : China is near. Kozloff, Joyce. Milano: Charta.
ISBN978-88-8158-787-2.
OCLC630502978.
Rosen, Randy; Brawer, Catherine Coleman (1989). Making their mark : women artists move into the mainstream, 1970-85. Cincinnati Art Museum. (1st ed.). New York: Abbeville Press.
ISBN0-89659-958-2.
OCLC18259773.
Roth, Moira (1998). Crossed purposes : Joyce & Max Kozloff. Youngstown: Butler Institute of American Art.
OCLC41320888.
White, Robin (1988). Joyce Kozloff. View. Oakland, Calif.: Point Publications.
OCLC10594589.
Tschinkel, Paul. ART/New York, Tape No. 15 - New Public Art (Joyce Kozloff, Keith Haring, John Ahearn), ART/New York. Inner-Tube Video, New York, NY, 1983.
Wrest, Ronnie.
"Joyce Kozloff"The Citrus Report, April 12, 2011.
^Moriuchi, Mey-Yen (2012). "Joyce Kozloff (American b. 1942)". The Female Gaze: Women Artists Making Their World. New York: Hudson Hills. p. 282.
ISBN978-1-55595-389-8.
^Stiles, Kristine and Peter Selz (1996). Theories and Document of Contemporary Art: A Sourcebook of Artists' Writings. Berkeley and Los Angeles California: University of California Press.
ISBN0-520-20251-1. pp. 154–155
^Gloria Gerace; Dennis Keeley; Margie J. Reese. Urban surprises: a guide to public art in Los Angeles. City of Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Dept.; 1 July 2002.
ISBN978-1-890449-14-8. p. 77.
^Joyce Kozloff. National Academy of Design. Retrieved January 17, 2014. Note: determined that she became part of the Academy in 2002 by the "NA 2002" after her name.