Lauren Kalman: But if the Crime Is Beautiful… @ MAD

Taking up the subject of gold (specifically jewelry and adornment) as representative of power, wealth, love, and sex, Lauren Kalman: But if the Crime Is Beautiful…, created by visual artist and metalsmith Lauren Kalman, is MAD’s second POV exhibition in the Tiffany & Co. Foundation Jewelry Gallery.

In reference to Austrian architect Adolf Loos’ 1910 lecture “Ornament and Crime,” in which he declared decoration regressive and fit only for degenerates and criminals (this included women and minorities), Kalman commits a “crime” by covering the inside and outside of MAD’s jewelry cases with 2,000 gold-plated brass leaves. Loos’ theories laid the groundwork for modernism, known for its spareness, rectilinearity, and rationality. In this installation, the upright white cases in the jewelry gallery stand in for Loos’ modernism.