Joyce Kozloff’s Patterns of Resistance
The feminist artist reflects on her work in the groundbreaking Pattern and Decoration Movement, her grand public artwork, and continued political activism against war and misogyny.
by Hyperallergic 
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Luckily, Kozloff’s career wasn’t up to Clement Greenberg. Kozloff went on to have dozens of shows, beautify over a dozen buildings and transit systems with public artworks over the decades, and inspire new generations of artists to unabashedly lean into ornament. Once an active member of the peace protests of the 1960s, she has also continued her political activism, which in the 21st century has become more explicit in her work. Her all-over pattern paintings have morphed into detailed maps, from Civil War battle plans exploding with viruses to aeronautical charts dotted with points that the United States has bombed.
In this episode of the Hyperallergic Podcast, you’ll hear the interview our Editor-in-Chief Hrag Vartanian recorded with Kozloff in 2021, just after the opening of With Pleasure: Pattern and Decoration in American Art 1972–1985 at Bard College’s Hessel Museum of Art, which the institution called “first full-scale scholarly North American survey” of the P&D movement. They talk about everything from her mother’s embroidery to her travels in Turkey and Iran that inspired her art. You’ll also hear from HyperallergicStaff Writer Maya Pontone, who reported this past year about Kozloff’s iconic public artwork in Cambridge’s Harvard Square train station that’s currently at risk of disappearing. And if you’ve been listening closely this season, you’ll recognize some recurring characters: Columbia professor Stephen Greene; the Heresies collective; Joyce’s partner, writer Max Kozoff, and; of course, Clement Greenberg.
Works from three of Kozloff’s latest series, Uncivil Wars, Boys’ Art, and Social Studies, are on view in the Map Room at Argosy Book Store (116 East 59th Street, Upper East Side, Manhattan) through January 25, 2025.
Subscribe to Hyperallergic on Apple Podcasts, and anywhere else you listen to podcasts. Listen to the conversation along with images of the artworks on YouTube.
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