Nouveau Art Nouveau, 2011
Tape Modern | Berlin, Germany

Artists: SARAH ANTON, NICKY BROEKHUYSEN, DAG, AMIE DICKE, FRANK EICKHOFF, PETER FREITAG, MARC FROMM, JAMES GORTNER, GOULD, ELIZABETH HEPWORTH, WILEY HOARD, OLIVER KROLL, HIROSHI MACDONALD MORI, TIM MEEHAN, JEONG RYU, POLINA SOLOVEICHIK, PAUL SZUSZINSKI, ANNE VON FREYBURG, MARA WAGENFUEHR

Nouveau Art Nouveau presents artworks by 20 artists that re-contextualize classical staples of Art Nouveau, the international aesthetic movement at the turn of the 20th century that sought to merge art and everyday life. Stylized organic and curvlinear forms, symmetrical design, figurative representation and craftmanship are all basic tenements of Art Nouveau style, evident in the undulating patterns, decorative ornament and graphic illustration that defined the era. Textiles and furniture, fashion and architecture were all encompassed by the movement.

Above all else, beauty and a "return to nature" were the two prevailing themes around which the Art Nouveau philosophy took shape. The artists presented in Nouveau Art Nouveau each appropriate degrees of the aesthetic in a range of media--from traditional forms of painting to more modern, digital processes--while still alluding to the original movement, its permutations and its influence as it emerged in Paris (as Art Nouveau), Germany (as Jugendstil), the UK (as the Arts and Crafts Movement) and beyond.

Image: work by Amie Dicke, photo by Maxime Ballesteros