Searching For The Willow Pattern
Argote’s latest body of work investigates the exchange of goods, aesthetics, and culture through historical trade routes. Sculp- tural paintings of raw linen standing tall in looped folds evoke skyscrapers, and their pockets (resembling rows of windows or balconies) are poured and pressed with colorants. The paintings and accompanying works on paper painted with unfired ceramic oxides such as cobalt, trace cultural exchanges between Spain, Asia, and the Middle East. In thinking about the commerce along these routes (precursor to present-day capitalism) and the aes- thetic legacies of imperialism, Searching for the Willow Pattern probes how contemporary ideas and ideals of modern living and taste betray histories of cultural pilfering, appropriation, and the repackaged globalization of western aesthetics.