What does a monochrome painting by the Russian-born American artist Mark Rothko have in common with a richly ornamented shutter from Morocco (Ill.)? Under the general heading of a »ban on images«, the prologue to the exhibition brings together Islamic abstract ornamentation and non-figurative painting (Rothko, Marden, Taaffe). While the religious impulse of Islam's ban on images resulted in the richness of geometric and arabesque ornamentation, the thrust towards abstraction in the 20th century led to painting's complete negation of objects and forms. Perhaps we can see Byzantine culture, of which Mark Rothkowitz took a fragment to the New World from his Russian home, as forming a bridge between the horror vacui of the Islamic East and the laus vacui of modern art.