For most of the last four decades, Pattern and Decoration art seemed wonderfully outré to many observers, an eccentric violation of the standards and norms of serious painting and sculpture that was itself not to be taken too seriously.
P&D, as 1970s Pattern and Decoration was soon called, poked a well-placed finger — or three — in the eye of Minimal art’s crisp reduction of austere forms, the sharp idea-orientation of Conceptual art and the fashionable but still critically iffy appeal of Pop art. All those florid fabric swatches, proliferating curlicues, Moorish arabesques, celebrations of Grandma’s wallpaper and crystal doorknobs, bright colors, polka dots and plaids were all just — well, just too much.