Conversation (In-Person and Virtual)
Patterns and Power:
A Discussion on Craft and Labor in Art 

Focusing on two NYC artists who approach decoration from a political mindset, this discussion will explore relationships between craft, pattern, and labor, especially as a means to question power structures. Joyce Kozloff, a major figure in the Pattern and Decoration and Feminist art movements, employs mapping and other visual traditions to rethink history and culture. Artist and writer Sarah Zapata creates sculptures, installations and performances with techniques including hand weaving and sewing to examine themes such as gender, identity, and colonialism. Both work with intricate, handmade processes, troubling the history of craft as “women’s work.”

Moderated by Catherine Quan Damman, Linda Nochlin Visiting Assistant Professor, Institute of Fine Arts, NYU.

Co-sponsored by the Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality at NYU; the Institute of Fine Arts, NYU; and the Department of Art History, College of Arts & Science, NYU.

Watch the recording of this program.