Thinking Through Craft

By (author) Adamson Glenn
Description
Co-published in Association with the Victoria and Albert Museum, London This book is a timely and engaging introduction to the way that artists working in all media think about craft. Workmanship is key to today''s visual arts, when high ‘production values'' are becoming increasingly commonplace. Yet craft''s centrality to contemporary art has received little serious attention from critics and historians. Dispensing with clichéd arguments that craft is art, Adamson persuasively makes a case for defining craft in a more nuanced fashion. The interesting thing about craft, he argues, is that it is perceived to be ''inferior'' to art. The book consists of an overview of various aspects of this second-class identity - supplementarity, sensuality, skill, the pastoral, and the amateur. It also provides historical case studies analysing craft''s role in a variety of disciplines, including architecture, design, contemporary art, and the crafts themselves. Thinking Through Craft will be essential reading for anyone interested in craft or the broader visual arts.
Table of contents
Introduction Chapter 1: Supplemental "Homage to Brancusi" Wearable Sculptures: Modern Jewelry and the Problem of Autonomy Reframing the Pattern and Decoration Movement Props Chapter 2: Sensual Ceramic Presence: Peter Voulkos The Essence of Clay: Yagi Kazuo The Materialization of the Art Object, 1966-72 Breath Chapter 3. Skilled Learning by Doing: Teaching Modern Craft Thinking in Situations: Josef Albers Learning Architecture: Charles Jencks and Kenneth Frampton Chapter 4: Pastoral Regions Apart Two Versions of Pastoral North, South, East, West Chapter 5: Amateur "The World''s Most Fascinating Hobby": Robert Arneson Feminism and the Politics of Amateurism Abject Craft: Mike Kelley and Tracey Emin Conclusion
Review quote
''At a time when technical skill has been widely dismissed or outsourced in the production of art, Glenn Adamson crucially adds an entire spectrum of hand-crafted objects to the creative history of the post-war era. And at a time when theoretical frameworks have stagnated, these objects, in his hands, bring with them a fresh and sophisticated set of interpretive perspectives.''
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''Adamson asks provocative questions about the marginalization of craft within the discourse of modernism. Best of all, he writes with a lucidity, energy and engagement that takes the reader with him all the way.''
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''A highly original contribution, Thinking through Craft is both thoughtful and exacting about crafted objects and the lessons provided by the artists'' time, labor and material inventiveness.''
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''A pathbreaking book"
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Throughout Thinking Through Craft, Adamson offers such provocative readings of both fine art and craft history that are likely to instigate radical new ways of thinking about each.
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This book is ... full of thoughtful and pertinent analysis and achieves an impressive theoretical take on the role of studio craft within the history of modern art.
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A thoughtful, exciting and well-written book that touches on so many interesting ideas concerning craft.
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[R]ecommended to both art and design theorists and anyone else anxious to engage in theorizing about craft.
Biographical note
Glenn Adamson is Deputy Head of Research and Head of Graduate Studies at the Victoria and Albert Museum, where he leads a graduate program in the History of Design. He holds degrees in Art History from Cornell University (BA) and from Yale University (PhD). Dr. Adamson was previously curator at the Chipstone Foundation, and in that capacity prepared exhibitions at the Milwaukee Art Museum and taught Art History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.