O U T S K IR T S
Wall
Ornament
and Crime
S T O R Y B Y
Mimi Luse
D an Funderburgh shows
that when it comes to wallpaper,
the devil is in tin' details.
Dan Funderburgh*s in-
tricate wallpaper de-
signs are hand-screened
by Flavor Paper, based
in New Orleans and
Brooklyn. All the wall-
paper rolls are 15 feet-
long and 27 inches wide.
1
Elysian Fields.
2 Elysian Fields in
Purple.
3
City Park
in Dark Chocolate
on Champagne.
•* Fruits of Design
in Deep Three Blue.
5
Death from Above
(aka Sharp Descent).
6 Dan Funderburgh
installing wallpaper.
7
Chinatown Toile.
8 Fruits of Design
in Sweet Potato.
Ill 1908 the modernist architect Adolf Loos
wrote, “ I have discovered the following
truth and present it to the world: cultural
evolution is equivalent to the removal of
ornament from articles in daily use.” In the
essay “ Ornament and Crime,” Loos claimed
that the use of ornament dates an object,
detracting from its utility and adding waste
to an already profligate world. A century
later, enter Dan Funderburgh—caught red-
handed. W ith a catalog that draws heavily
on Renaissance styles, the Arts and Crafts
movement and Islamic art, Funderburgh’s
wallpaper designs are an unabashed celebra-
tion of embellishment from nearly every era
and civilization.
Confessing his affection for vintage pat-
terns, Funderburgh says, “ I would sleep
with
The M'nrlcl o f Ornament
(Taschen) next
to me, if I could.” But the real reward of
studying history is that once you master the
genre, you are free to subvert the subject.
Among the studied boughs, wreaths and
paisleys, Funderburgh slips dark humor into
his wallpaper, giving traditionally innocu-
ous ornament a biting w it that makes for an
eloquent rebuttal to Loos’s hypothesis.
Combining traditional motifs with contem-
porary experience often inspired by city
life, each work is a wry, self-contained nar-
rative, charming from afar and fierce up
close. Says Funderburgh, “ I think the best
pieces I ’ve done are like a curated exhibi-
tion of my current thoughts and multiple
historic aesthetic influences.”
Many of Funderburgh’s wallpapers are
homages to William Morris’s hyper-stylized
plant patterns. But while Morris’s designs
were a nostalgic revisit to a preindustrial
world, Funderburgh uses that template to
acknowledge the impossibility of that re-
turn. In the ironically titled Elysian Fields,
instead of a pastoral fantasy, Funderburgh
regales us withVenus flytraps, fruit bats and
stray bones.
In another instance, when installed in
a room, the modified imperial damask of his
City' Park feels grand and imposing. So it’s
funny when the details reveal an intricate
composition of rats, fire hydrants, pigeons
and parking meters. By acknowledging the
commonplace objects harbored in it, Fun-
derburgh deconstructs an Olmsted and Vaux
utopian landscape.
In all their postmodern duality, Funder-
burgh’s wallpapers can transcend utilitarian-
ism or decor, standing as discrete works of
art on and o ff the walls. As such, the titles
of his papers often weigh on their concept.
Death from Above, which comes in several
morbidly chirpy colorways, is a composi-
tion of broken bottles and other tools of de-
struction in free fall. As far as domestic
decor goes, it’s pretty dark. However Fun-
derburgh is insistent that he is not a cynic.
“ I’m an optimist. It’s one of the reasons I
gravitate toward pretty things and histori-
cal references.”
Funderburgh earned a
b . f .a .
from Kan-
sas State University in illustration, but his
time working as a commercial artist in Man-
hattan and Brooklyn has been the most for-
mative experience. A collection of Persian
artifacts at the Louvre initially piqued his
interest in surface design. “I saw an anchor,
a knife and a plate next to each other, each
beautifully engraved. I thought, ‘People
spent a whole lot of time making each one,’
and that attention to detail made me appreci-
ate it.
... Patterns delight me. I don’t know
why they have a bad rap.”
A ll of Funderburgh’s intricate designs
are drafted with Adobe Illustrator. Not the
most romantic medium, it’s a computer skill
that requires patience and years of experi-
ence to achieve technical mastery. When
asked to define craft, he asserts, “I think
of it in the most dictionary definition of the
word: making things well.” He expresses
admiration for the crew at Flavor Paper,
the New Orleans/Brooklyn-based boutique
wallpaper facility that hand-screens his de-
signs. “I have a good relationship with Fla-
vor Paper, and when I submit designs, it
feels like I’m making fine art. I haven’t been
asked to change things.”
Funderburgh’s wallpaper, treading the
line between art, craft and design, is in the
collections of Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt
Design Museum and the Miami A rt Mu-
seum. He says his work is “ a repudiation of
the fabricated schism between art and deco-
ration.” Acknowledging designers past
while cracking inside jokes about our con-
temporary surrounds, Funderburgh proves
Loos wrong by showing that ornament is
a clarification, not a problem.
M im i L u se is a Brooklyn-based jew eler a n d
w riter who does film review s fo r
The L Maga-
zine
a n d interview s artists fo r the blog Bush
wicktiK.com.
*
danfunderburgh.com
031 ainerican craft oct/novoç
www.freedowns.net & www.journal-plaiza.net
