talks
It’s art, it’s craft, it’s good: Artists talk at Abington
By libby
April 16, 2007 · 6 Comments
Ambush, by Kimberley Hart, 2005, fabric, yarn, pailettes, sequins, beads, upholstery tacks, ladder, salt. This is a female version of a tree house, all crocheted. Even the ladder is pink. There are grill-covered windows on this that remind me of grills behind which Muslim women invisibly peer out onto the street.
In the left corner is art, and in the right is craft, but at Abington Art Center right now, it’s tough to tell the two apart–and by mixing it up, the exhibit–The HandMaking–asks all kinds of interesting questions about both and about value and about women’s work and men’s work and all of those juicy questions that we still haven’t been able to quite answer. But that’s what makes it all so interesting.
And that is what made a panel discussion at Abington Saturday all the more interesting. The panel included artists Polly Apfelbaum, Suzie Brandt, Annette Monnier and Lee Stoetzel, all of them in the exhibit of work by 21 artists. Moderator Amy Lipton kept the discussion moving with the hard questions. Lipton, who is curator at Abington, curated the exhibit with Joele Cuyler, creative director at Modern Painters magazine, and more to the point, former creative director at Martha Stewart Living Magazine.
Lipton’s first question was whether there was a difference between craft and high art, and no one was willing to draw a firm distinction.
Pecky Lamp, by Lee Stoetzel, 2000, wood, light fixtures. This riff on an Arts and Crafts movement lamp pumped up to gigantic scale and using cedar distressed by a virus brings into question everything that arts and crafts and the Arts and Crafts movement represent.
When Stoetzel got a job at a gallery that showed Richard Artschwager, he said something clicked. “If you could hang furniture on the wall…” you could do whatever you wanted, hang whatever on the wall. “I didn’t want to make paintings anymore.” Stoetzel has a solo exhibit opening April 26 at Mixed Greens.
Tapestry/sheet (folk), by Annette Monnier, 2006, fabric marker on ‘Martha Stewart Collection’ full-sized sheet. Monnier is true to her word and uses craft materials at the same time that her work discusses art, decor and value.
Monnier, gallerist at the new Copy, and also a trend spotter for Gyro Worldwide Advertising and more, was less theoretical but came to the same conclusion–”I don’t see a difference. I’ve never used artist’s materials. I always used markers or whatever was handy. WalMart was close to my house and had what I needed. I use what’s around.” Indeed markers are what Monnier used on her Tapestry/sheet (folk), 2006, fabric marker on ‘Martha Stewart Collection’ full-sized sheet, one of her pieces in the exhibit.
Belair Rd, by Suzie Brandt, 2006, hand hooked wool rug. Brandt’s rug served as a sort of doily atop a real tree stump on Belair Rd. The installation at Abington included a picture postcard of the rug atop the stump. Among the issues the work raises is whether the tree is more beautiful or more domesticated with its colored stripes. It also marks a place with the human touch and reminds us to notice the remainder of what was once a huge tree.
Brandt, who teaches fiber at MICA, related her interest in fiber art to her sewing experience as a child. And Apfelbaum (I’m linking here to her solo show at the ICA in 2003), told about moving to New York in 1978, when artists were using different kinds of materials. When a student at Tyler, Apfelbaum started in printmaking, but that didn’t last. “It was for me reinventing craft.”
Lipton cited a number of recent and current art exhibits with craft themes–like Radical Lace and Subversive Knitting and Socialcraft–and wondered why this was happening. She asked whether the return to handmade was a reaction to the hands-off digital world.
While Stoetzel agreed, Monnier said she had other motives. “I have a do-it-yourself ethos. I have nothing against technology. I hope it’s not a backlash”
Ironically, I came home without a photo of Polly Apfelbaum’s piece. But here’s a picture of her during the panel discussion. She looks like my 2nd grade teacher, Mrs. Goodman, who I really loved.
Apfelbaum also thought it wasn’t a backlash. “It’s like painting. It’s always there, and whether people are paying attention…For me there is a tradition I like. I think of Amish quilts.”
Brandt redefined made by hand: “I was trying to learn key commands for Illustrator. Now that’s handwork.” That earned her a laugh.
Margarita Cabrera, Slow Cooker, 2003, vinyl, thread, metal, electric wiring, ceramic plate; Cabrera, who is from El Paso, sews art about the work women do and the value placed on it. Her other piece in the show is a cleaning kit made totally of black pleather and thread. She’s bringing Claes Oldenberg down to homey scale and adding all kinds of not-so-lighthearted content.
In a discussion that began with Andrea Zittel, represented in the exhibit by a felt dress that she made from scratch, including making the fiber, Stoetzel mentioned how Margarita Cabrera (also in the exhibit) made her stitches very evident. “The stitching proves that it’s handmade.” Lipton added that Cabrera also stitches together “giant Hummers and cactus plants,” which led her to ask about function in art.
Lee Stoetzel listening during the panel discussion.
Brandt joked, “It’s not art if your body touches it.” Apfelbaum claimed her work was functional–but temporal, and got a laugh, too. And then Sue Spaid, who wrote the brochure essay for the exhibit, interjected from the audience with the idea that art has a function–to engender thought.
Here’s a picture of Monnier and Brandt. I liked that their poses mirrored one another. And who could resist Annette’s tights and Suzie’s socks?
Monnier, whose artificial floral arrangements also are in the exhibit, said it was art was like flowers, “something you’d put to decorate a room, so art is something functional.”
Apfelbaum enthusiastically jumped on the bandwagon and said she thinks of her work as still life. “Still life is important to me.” Then she said, “I’ve been connected to painting and sculpture. I’m privileged. I’m very happy to be in this place.” And she pointed to how Anni Albers’ weavings were designated craft and how fiber artist Sheila Hicks shows in craft shows. “I love that stuff.”
Elizabeth Demaray, Plant Sweater, 2007,plant, Shetland wool; This was the antithesis of a still life.
Spaid wondered what kind of reception The HandMaking would get if it were exhibited at Michael’s. “It’s layered with meaning in a way crafts is not layered with meaning.
Daina Taimina, We are the Same, 2005, cotton. In addition to reflecting calculations for hyperbolic planes, this also falls in the social commentary category; the orange and blue are reversed on the pair.
Lipton mentioned Daina Taimina’s crocheted piece, We Are The Same. Taimina, who is a math professor at Cornell, began using crochet to demonstrate hyperbolic planes–(don’t ask, but it has to do with numbers and space that is non-Euclidean. (The result, Spaid muttered sotto voce to me, looks like escarole). The art world jumped on it and absorbed it.
“The art world will take on anything that’s good,” said Monnier. So much for the crafts designation mattering.
I’m not sure who then related this story (Lipton? Spaid?) but the tale went that Ken Price refused to be in a show called Crafty until they changed its name to Homemade Champagne.
Monnier again piped up, “If the effect’s different enough, someone is going to want it. …I’m not skilled, so what you were saying about having to be really good at something, well I’m just screwed.”
This exhibit has so many wonderful pieces by so many great artists that I’m just going to list the others I haven’t yet named: Nancy Bauch, Francis Cape, Nick Cave, Jody Culkin, Jim Isermann, Maira Kalman, Larry Krone, Elizabeth Lundberg Morisette, Michael Manuel Barndt, Virgil Marti, Meridith McNeal, Christy Rupp, and Tucker Schwarz.
More images on my Flickr site.
Tags: annette monnier, daina taimina, elizabeth demaray, kimberley hart, lee stoetzel, margarita cabrera, polly apfelbaum, suzie brandt
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“Lipton’s first question was whether there was a difference between craft and high art, and no one was willing to draw a firm distinction.”
That’s because there ISN’T ONE!!!!!
Here are some not so firm differences (going from firmest to limpest):
1. The Financial Difference:
If you call it Craft you won’t be able to ask the same prices for it. Now if that’s because a Craft item lacks the intellectual and philosophical panache of Art or if its because rich people don’t want to pay as much for something they will be buying a lot of (dishes, f’rinstance), well I dunno…maybe a bit of both.
You can’t tell me hundreds, if not thousands of dollars doesn’t constitute a “difference”! Its sure feels different in my wallet.
2. The Institutional difference:
There are still separate Sculpture Departments and Metals/Jewelry Departments and Wood/Furniture Departments and Glass Departments and Industrial Design Departments etc etc. (At UArts we have a Crafts Dept, an ID Dept and a Sculpture Dept.) Until it’s a “3-D Department” SOMEONE is claiming a pedagogical, if not categorical difference.
There are also museums, magazines and collectors devoted exclusively to craft (however they may define it)
3. The Traditional/historical Difference:
This is a chimera as it is only relatively recently that there has been a concept of “High Art” with celebrity practitioners. Before the 1500’s it was all craft (or was it all art?). I think the word “Craft” has only meant what it is we mean here for about 50-75 years. When was the term “Arts and Crafts” coined anyway?
But I’ll humor you and say that at some point a split happened and Art became “that which is for art’s sake” and Craft became “everything else including hobbies”—but a huge component would be functional objects made for the sake of utility.
As for Decorative Arts—well, I wish that term could be revived-ASAP. It would really bring some lively arguing to this debate!
In the “traditional differences” category we can lump such superficial distinctions as material: i.e. wood, metal, ceramic, glass and fibers are “traditional craft materials” with long histories of “traditional techniques” such as joinery, wood turning, forging, gold and silver smithing, throwing, hand building, weaving, glass blowing, lampworking etc etc etc…
…to employ those materials and techniques in the name of Art is nothing new—I mean, its gotta be made out of something…or maybe not…
4. Does this even count?
I think there is a trend towards making things from the idea DOWN vs. from the materials UP. Meaning: in one way of working you have the idea then you make the thing; in the other way, you would be developing the idea out of the process and the materials. I know sculpture teachers who won’t let their students start until they know exactly what it is they are making and crafts teachers who don’t know what it means until its done. Fine Artists seem sort of exaggeratedly interested in the MEANING of what they do—as if they can actually dictate—or even predict it. Crafts people seem to derive meaning out of the making itself…
This distinction might be completely absurd—I think it makes a huge number of Fine Artists into Craftspeople actually. Hooray—a point for our side!
I think the million dollar question here is there any differences in the objects themselves. Is a craft object ultimately the same as a sculptural object?
And the answer is……
Well, duh, it’s a continuum. Starting with very boring, highly utilitarian, stoopid OBJECTS that can be easily thought of and mass produced (f’rinstance: white plates ala WalMart) to highly original, labor intensive hand made, intelligent OBJECTS to ethereal philosophies made barely physical (i.e. video or sound installations).
Any time one is trying to categorize things you run into trouble. The practitioners don’t usually feel the need to do this do they? They just make the stuff and let others worry about it.
Hi, Judith, of course you are totally right about all this. What makes the difference persist is based on people who have investments (personal or monetary) and people who have some control over the categories (galleries and academia).
During the discussion, since I myself said something about there being a continuum, I didn’t write it down (can she take notes and talk at the same time??? nooooo). You will be happy to hear that in general, the mood of the panel and the crowd was that there is no firm distinction. I think I also griped about nomenclature getting in the way. It obfuscates any chance of clear thinking and clear looking and clear pricing.
How artists often subvert highly crafted finishes also was part of the discussion, and again there was a continuum of accomplished artists who undermined their own technique and artists who deliberately approached their work without technical wizardry under their belts. Anything goes, was the sense of the group.
The group also talked about things defined as women’s work getting put in the craft category, until the guys like Mike Kelley took it up, but we all know that. In fact, we all know all of the conversation, but people are still exercised about the issues because they have to do with money and power and who’s in and who’s out.
I also muttered something about there being plenty of “art” that was just plain bad, and plenty of “craft” that was just plain good. I think a lot of people were irritated with me for saying this. Apparently in our culture we are required to embrace everything labeled art and to encourage all creativity as if we are the artist’s mother.
I wonder if this is true for crafts as well.
I think perhaps we should label all hand-made art as craft and get on with loving that which we love, hating that which we hate, and buying that which we love for fair prices.
I don’t have a really good way to distinguish art and craft that embodies ideas and engenders thinking, other than to say, whether the powers that be call it art or craft, it’s the sort of thing I love. I rarely fall for something based on good looks alone.
I just came across this discussion and thought I might raise a few unanswered questions from the perspective of someone who views what is typically labeled craft from a fine arts perspective.
I think some of the most relevant work that could be labeled “craft” is not medium based (despite the inclination of art schools to segregate based on this artificial and outdated system of classification). Artists I find intriguing engage in the same conceptual dialogue as so-called “fine artists” while at the same time embody alternative values linked to aesthetic and craftsmanship properties that have traditionally belonged to the craft sphere. The question is whether this excludes them from being conceptual art. Can craft and conceptual art be combined, or are they irreconcilable opposites?
I have heard other theorists put forth the idea that to overcome the status of the crafted object is for that object to speak to the definition itself–that is,as a a subject . In that sense it does become conceptual and just as engaging and relevant as any “fine arts” practices. I think of Grayson Perry the artist who recently won the Turner Prize who speaks to the traditional vase form but addresses very unconventional subjects ranging from gender identity and sexuality to art world politics. (The fact that someone who is a ceramicist won the Turner prize is also reveals that “crafted-objects” can be conceptual–therefore elevated to the level of other fine arts practices–as well).
My last comment/question is about institutional context and the way in which the identity of objects depend upon where they are placed. I’m thinking right off the bat of the recent Nicole Cerubini exhibition at the ICA. What happens to an object that would traditionally be defined as “craft” when placed in a museum or organization that is not designated as as a craft organization? (I am also thinking of when Judith’s work was shown in the 2004 Whitney biennial amongst sculpture, web and sound art,video, photography, etc.)In these cases, context makes an immense difference in how the object is viewed. I find this hopeful, because it demonstrates the power that institutions have in expanding the traditional definitions of “craft”.
Hi, Melissa, Context is everything, after all. And I think it applies to your first point as well as your last one. I’m not sure what you meant by this:
I have heard other theorists put forth the idea that to overcome the status of the crafted object is for that object to speak to the definition itself–that is,as a a subject.
Any chance you can explain what definition you mean? Do you mean the definition of craft, which seems a little limiting? Help!
This from Melissa via email:
Libby—thanks for such a quick response. Perhaps to clarify my point about craft as a subject I should have said that the work should be self-reflexive, meaning it should reflect upon its own meaning. Just like any other artistic category, craft ought to be treated as a target of limitless (and critical) self-examination. That said, I think an example may help to clarify my point. In this context, the first artist that comes to mind for me is the jewelry artist Gjis Bakker, who has consistently reflected on the concepts of adornment and and functionality as well as the relationship of the object to the body throughout his entire body of work (regardless of the material he uses, which ranges from silver to aluminum to color photographs encased in PVC). In every work, Bakker is creating a dialogue about the limiting definition of jewelry in every piece he makes.
Not sure that helps. By the way, I am quite encouraged by all the discussion of craft on your site. I sometimes fear that critics might shy away from covering craft related exhibitions.
Thanks, Melissa. The example helps me more than the description, because it seems broader than the description suggests. I hate to think that self-reflection and self-consciousness are the only paths for craft to merit the art label. And clearly you meant something broader than that.
I also want to mention that we covered a fabulous “craft” show that’s up until May 6 at the Philadelphia Art Alliance, where Melissa Caldwell is curator. Here’s a link to the post.