Modernist design, that radical and iconoclastic break with the past, is now itself a thing of the past. Perhaps sufficiently so that over the last few years, artists have been treating modernist designs as icons themselves, and incorporating them?sometimes literally and often conceptually?into their own work. These recombinations and modifications result in an entirely unique mix: a meta-modernism in which the original source is changed, self-referential, abstracted. Using classic elements in new configurations, artists from across the world are making original works of art that comment on...

During their decade-long collaboration (1985-1995), Kate Ericson and Mel Ziegler produced some of the most influential conceptual art projects of the time. Among their witty and stimulating installations and outdoor projects was "Camouflaged History," a house painted in a U.S. Army-designed camouflage pattern using 72 commercial paint colors included in the...