Morris Month Lecture 2026 (In Person)
Tuesday 24 March 2026, 12.30pm-1.30pm
Appropriation and the Critique of Capitalist Aesthetics in the Reworking of William Morris design, 1999–2025
David Mabb employs appropriated imagery to reconsider the political implications of aesthetic forms in modern art and design history, with a particular focus on the nineteenth-century English designer, writer, and socialist William Morris. Mabb’s engagement with Morris is driven by the enduring political relevance of Morris’s ideas and the continued commercial circulation of his designs. Through reconfiguration and juxtaposition, Mabb establishes dialectical relationships between Morris’s work and other forms of cultural production, especially art and design associated with the period of the Russian Revolution.
This talk will introduce eight bodies of work: paintings on Morris fabric from The Decorating Business and Industrial Paintings (1999–2003); three carpets from Art into Everyday Life (2002–2003); paintings on Morris wallpapers, including Constructs, Rhythm 69, and Long Live the New! (2003–present); The Rodchenko Pose photograph (2002); The Morris Kitsch Archive and the tea towel project Have Nothing in Your House That You Do Not Know to Be Useful or Believe to Be Beautiful (2012–present); paintings on facsimiles of Kelmscott Press books, the Wood beyond the World, Announcer and About Two Worlds (2013–2016); the installation A Provisional Memorial to Nuclear Disarmament (2015–2017); and Historical Materialism book cover designs (2021–present).
David Mabb is an artist, designer, writer and occasional curator. He has exhibited internationally, has held the Abbey Fellowship in Painting at the British School at Rome and curated William Morris: “ministering to the swinish luxury of the rich” at the Whitworth Art Gallery in 2004. He was Reader in Art at Goldsmiths, University of London until 2025 and lives and works in Kent.
Location: William Morris Society, 26 Upper Mall, W6 9TA and Linden House, Upper Mall, W6 9TA
In celebration of Morris' birthday, cake and bubbles will be served at this lecture.
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Tuesday 24 March 2026, 12.30pm-1.30pm
Appropriation and the Critique of Capitalist Aesthetics in the Reworking of William Morris design, 1999–2025
David Mabb employs appropriated imagery to reconsider the political implications of aesthetic forms in modern art and design history, with a particular focus on the nineteenth-century English designer, writer, and socialist William Morris. Mabb’s engagement with Morris is driven by the enduring political relevance of Morris’s ideas and the continued commercial circulation of his designs. Through reconfiguration and juxtaposition, Mabb establishes dialectical relationships between Morris’s work and other forms of cultural production, especially art and design associated with the period of the Russian Revolution.
This talk will introduce eight bodies of work: paintings on Morris fabric from The Decorating Business and Industrial Paintings (1999–2003); three carpets from Art into Everyday Life (2002–2003); paintings on Morris wallpapers, including Constructs, Rhythm 69, and Long Live the New! (2003–present); The Rodchenko Pose photograph (2002); The Morris Kitsch Archive and the tea towel project Have Nothing in Your House That You Do Not Know to Be Useful or Believe to Be Beautiful (2012–present); paintings on facsimiles of Kelmscott Press books, the Wood beyond the World, Announcer and About Two Worlds (2013–2016); the installation A Provisional Memorial to Nuclear Disarmament (2015–2017); and Historical Materialism book cover designs (2021–present).
David Mabb is an artist, designer, writer and occasional curator. He has exhibited internationally, has held the Abbey Fellowship in Painting at the British School at Rome and curated William Morris: “ministering to the swinish luxury of the rich” at the Whitworth Art Gallery in 2004. He was Reader in Art at Goldsmiths, University of London until 2025 and lives and works in Kent.
Location: William Morris Society, 26 Upper Mall, W6 9TA and Linden House, Upper Mall, W6 9TA
In celebration of Morris' birthday, cake and bubbles will be served at this lecture.
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