Walls Are Talking

This book is to be published on the occasion of a major touring exhibition of historic and contemporary wallpapers, organized by the Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester. Inherently ephemeral and often overlooked, wallpaper has been seen as the poor relation of the decorative arts, and by the later 20th century wallpaper had become a bit of a joke, a cliché with connotations of kitsch—hardly the most obvious medium for a contemporary avant-garde artist. However, during the past two decades, artists exploring themes of home, memory and identity have created installations with backdrops of specially designed wallpaper which has played a crucial part in the mise en scène. Some have used wallpaper as pictorial polemic by illustrating, for example, warfare or racism, and others have made visually obvious the conflicts in contemporary Western culture, in particular those associated with gender and sexuality. Featuring works by more than 30 international artists, including Sonia Boyce, Thomas Demand, Robert Gober, Damien Hirst, Abigail Lane, Francesco Simeti, and Niki de Saint Phalle, Walls Are Talking puts their wallpapers in context by showing how they have used historic wallpaper motifs, styles, and methods, and how existing patterns have been adapted and subverted to telling effect.