Spectres and stragglers: Utopia in ornament

The use of the ornamental or decorative in art and design has been associated with backwardness, especially in the context of turn of the century aesthetics debates. This article examines two accusations levelled at the ornamental – that its practitioners are ‘stragglers’ and that it is a haunting ‘spectre’. These words are taken as a starting point from which ornamentation’s particular relationship with a non-linear experience of time can be explored. This disruptive characteristic of the ornamental aesthetic is then examined in the context of the 2014 Jeremy Deller-curated exhibition Love is Enough, which displayed works of Andy Warhol alongside works of William Morris.