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About This Book
Contemporary artists such as Ghada Amer and Clare Twomey have gained international reputations for work that transforms ordinary craft media and processes into extraordinary conceptual art, from Amer's monumental stitched paintings to Twomey's large, ceramics-based installations. Despite the amount of attention that curators and gallery owners have paid to these and many other conceptual artists who incorporate craft into their work, few art critics or scholars have explored the historical or conceptual significance of craft in contemporary art. Extra/Ordinary takes up that task. Reflecting on what craft has come to mean in recent decades, artists, critics, curators, and scholars develop theories of craft in relation to art, chronicle how fine-art institutions understand and exhibit craft media, and offer accounts of activist crafting, or craftivism. Some contributors describe generational and institutional changes under way, while others signal new directions for scholarship, considering craft in relation to queer theory, masculinity, and science. Encompassing quilts, ceramics, letterpress books, wallpaper, and textiles, and moving from well-known museums to home workshops and political protests, Extra/Ordinary is an eclectic introduction to the "craft culture" referenced and celebrated by artists promoting new ways of thinking about the role of craft in contemporary art.
Contributors. Elissa Auther, Anthea Black, Betty Bright, Nicole Burisch, Maria Elena Buszek, Jo Dahn, M. Anna Fariello, Betsy Greer, Andrew Jackson, Janis Jefferies, Louise Mazanti, Paula Owen, Karin E. Peterson, Lacey Jane Roberts, Kirsty Robertson, Dennis Stevens, Margaret Wertheim
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Table of contents
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction: The Ordinary Made Extra/Ordinary
- Redefining Craft: New Theory
- Making and Naming: The Lexicon of Studio Craft
- Validity Is in the Eye of the Beholder: Mapping Craft Communities of Practice
- Super-Objects: Craft as an Aesthetic Position
- Fabrication and Encounter: When Content Is a Verb
- Craft Show: In the Realm of âFine Artsâ
- How the Ordinary Becomes Extraordinary: The Modern Eye and the Quilt as Art Form
- Wallpaper, the Decorative, and Contemporary Installation Art
- Handwork and Hybrids: Recasting the Craft of Letterpress Printing
- Elastic/Expanding: Contemporary Conceptual Ceramics
- Craftivism
- Craftivist History
- Rebellious Doilies and Subversive Stitches: Writing a Craftivist History
- Craft Hard Die Free: Radical Curatorial Strategies for Craftivism
- Loving Attention: An Outburst of Craft in Contemporary Art
- New Functions, New Frontiers
- Put Your Thing Down, Flip It, and Reverse It: Reimagining Craft Identities Using Tactics of Queer Theory
- Men Who Make: The âFlowâ of the Amateur Designer/Maker
- Crochet and the Cosmos: An Interview with Margaret Wertheim
- Contributors
- Index