Open Source Curriculum
The Power of Decoration: Rethinking Hierarchies
with Anthony Sonnenberg
April 4, 2026 // Part 1 // Power Dynamics series
April 11, 2026 // Part 2
Summary
Summary coming soon!
Discussion Guide
Resources
Lessons in Promiscuity: Patterning and the New Decorativeness in Art of the 1970’s and 1980’s - Anna Katz (part 2 here)
Introduction: Order and Purpose in Nature - Ernst Gombrich, Sense of Order
William Morris - podcast by In Our Time
Vasari: Inventor of Artistic Genius - podcast by Not Just the Tudors
The Secrets Hidden in Tudor Art - podcast by Not Just the Tudors
The Decorative, Abstraction, and the Hierarchy of Art and Craft in the Art Criticism of Clement Greenberg - Elissa Auther
About the Topic
Decoration is personal. Decoration is political. Decoration is powerful.
And yet, decoration has been historically marginalized, considered extra instead of integral, and even interpreted as a snub. How do we shift this dynamic, reclaim, and redefine decoration? We must rethink the hierarchies of decoration’s role across cultures and use it as a conduit to cut through other existing hierarchies.
Decoration has changed the world in the past; it will change the world in the future. In this two-part State of Ceramics, we consider what decoration can do for us as individuals and as communities. How can we wield decoration within and beyond our practices?
Saturday, April 4 (11-12:30PST) Anthony Sonnenberg’s lecture followed by a traditional Q&A & Saturday, April 11 (11-12:30) for Anthony’s brief presentation of case studies in decoration followed by an open, democratic discussion centered around questions from Anthony’s research.
About the Artist
Born in 1986 in Graham,TX, Anthony Sonnenberg earned a BA with an emphasis in Italian and Art History in 2009 and an MFA in Sculpture from the University of Washington, Seattle, in 2012. Sonnenberg’s work, which ranges from porcelain to performance, has been shown across the United States and internationally. He lives and works in Fayetteville, Arkansas.
Notable recent exhibitions include: State of the Art II, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, AR (2020); Ceramics Now, Galerie Italienne, Paris, France (2021); Cannons Buried in Flowers, Gavlak Gallery, Los Angeles (2023); and Resplendent Dreams: Reawakening the Rococo, Indianapolis Museum of Art (2025).
Notable residences include: Windgate Museum of Art Inaugural Artist-in-Residence (2021); CSULB-CCC Summer Resident Artist, California State University, Long Beach, CA (2018); Yaddo Artist Residency, Saratoga Springs, NY (2017); Resident at Houston Center for Contemporary Craft, Houston, TX (2016); and Emerging Artist-in-Residence at Pilchuck Glass School, Stanwood, WA (2012). In addition to this, He was recently named a United States Artists Fellow for 2026.
Sonnenberg’s works can be found in the collections of Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, the Indianapolis Museum of Art, and the Historic Arkansas Museum, among others.