Dangerous Delineation

So I spent a few precious drops of gasoline to drive into Oakland last night for a lecture intriguingly titled "Craft Kills" I guess it is the first of a series that the OAM will host around the topic of contemporary craft. The guest speaker was the spunky Jennifer Scanlan, Associate Curator at the Museum of Art & Design in NY. The crowd was a mix of gray-haired docents and CCA students who came to examine the argument that craft is no longer valid as a category of art. I myself agree and disagree. I understand that people have misconceptions about what craft is. Those without up-to-date exposure, probably still define it as teapots and basket weaving. But I think most people in that room last night knew better. And still many nodded their heads in agreement with the CCA's decisions to remove Craft from the institution's name (and change the name American Craft Museum to Museum of Art & Design).

I hate to say it, but it sounded like the latter decision was based on convenience for curators, so they could broaden their shows, include nontraditional themes, and appeal to a high brow audience. Nothing wrong with that really--push the boundaries. But I cling to the word CRAFT as a noble, defining practice, that will never go away (and can change as much as it wants).

How else do you define artwork that requires a specific set of technical skills, and carries a rich history of cultural and artistic tradition? How can places like CCA and artists like Scott Andresen and Judith Schaechter claim their niche and find a home? This is the problem of deleting a word you still really need.

 

And why can't CRAFT be a verb? Artists are crafters even if they are just constructing an alternative reality. Surely film directors and cinematographers refer to their "craft". I dunno, I am spinning off here into nonsense. Just something for everyone to think about.

While you are thinking, check out some of these other artist/crafters mentioned in the lecture. Those were some precious drops of gasoline well spent!

El Anatsui   http://elanatsui.com/index.htm

Claire Coles   http://www.clairecolesdesign.co.uk/

Cat Mazza  http://www.microrevolt.org/

Anne Wilson   http://www.annewilsonartist.com/projects/top/walkthrough.html

Gord Peteran  http://www.cranbrookart.edu/museum/peteran.html

Simon Starling  http://www.guggenheimcollection.org/site/artist_work_md_210_1.html

Sketch Design by Front  http://www.frontdesign.se/sketchfurniture/

Comments

[Elizabeth Whipple]

Thanks for covering our recent "Craft Kills" seminar. For the record, the venue was the Oakland Museum of California (not the Oakland Art museum).

Yrs. for media accuracy,

Elizabeth Whipple/Communications Manager
Oakland Museum of California

[Edward Mycue]

1. i was surprise to learn the oakland art museum as i always heard it called is not called the oakland museum of california. it's true it has had a wonderful reputation as a regional museum of california art. may it retain that.

2. the revered california college of the arts and crafts a few years back changed its name to elimate the last two words "and crafts" making it more confusing to tell what it is as it has a san francisco location as well.

3. and a few years ago the strybing aboretum changed to the san francisco botanical garden (at strybing aboretum).

these name changes seem an attempt to go upscale even as the reasons given attempt to strive for the clarity of redefinition (while it really comes across as dissembling disguised as reconfiguration).

i am not alone in thinking
it is some "bodypart"--(name one) --snobby idiocy.

things change and we get used to them learning to remember them as each time some squirrelbrain re-members them. one by one.

edward mycue

[Edward Mycue]

whoops! and shucks! i put not for
now in 2nd line of my above post.
i thought i'd changed it after previewing it, but no.

the t and the w are far apart of the keyboard.

i wonder what it means that i so often fatfinger "not" for "now".
certainly "not now" or "now not"--
which doesn't do either.

edward mycue

[Edward Mycue]

plus in my #1, it should be "i was surpriseD?
& further, in choosing a body part you needn't be gender specific. well because anyway we all have arms and lips & such. and really it isn't nice to denigrate your elbow for example by calling a noxious person or organization one. (i note here that my father cautioned against calling organizations and even animals names because something inanimate
or inarticualte or insensate can't forgive. only a person can i think he meant. and then you'd be on record as being anti-things that can't forgive and that people associated with organizations and such would hate you without being able to forgive you. so don't go calling people dirty rotten protestants or englishmen, for example. or dirty rotten catholics or irishmen. and those were the days of McCarthyism when we called everything we didn't like pinko or commie.)
there's something about cursing and name-calling that seems so satisfying sometimes. it would be nice to have little magnet 'milagros'(of human parts) in silver or tin and magnetized little signs with nasty words that when you get home from a bad day you could post on your own refrigerator next to those little magnatized blackboards (on which you can draw the offenders).
maybe this could be a new kind of therapy to focus your real angers.
then once a solstice we could bring in our refrigerator doors
to our city art gallery for exhibit. a kind of poll, perhaps. edward mycue just a-musing here