I started reading Extra/Ordinary: Craft and Contemporary Art, an interesting new-ish book trying to make sense of contemporary craft. After an essay or two I felt like commenting on it, so here I am – this is what blogs are for, at least mine.
Honestly, I was put off by the title and avoided picking it up until now. Yes, clearly craft exists in relation to art and design and various other fields of cultural practice, but I am a little leery of always relating it to contemporary art. Enough already. The project seems more nuanced now that I’ve started reading, though, so we’ll see.
M. Anna Fariello’s essay “Making and Naming” has some really great aspects. She gives a really clear condensed history of studio craft, connecting it to Ruskin, education reform in the US, GI Bill, etc. Great for anyone wanting a ten page overview.
She also separates function from utility, arguing that utility is the basic act of performing a task whereas function is “an abstract attitude of material expression” (36). So, for example, the social function of containing, separating out and saving something special, is distinct and as significant as the actual act of doing it. Use is physical; function is metaphysical.
I can accept this I guess, but this definition of function removes the immediacy of the object. Fariello celebrates craft for its interactivity, vs the passiveness of visual perception of ‘art’, but her definition of function locates the meaning of craft in its metaphorical value, its ability to represent function rather than actually be utilitarian. To me this reduces the intensity of craft, making it more like art. I think craft is powerful when function (metaphysical) arrives through utility (physical) not just through the idea of utility. The metaphysical meaning of the cup is revealed through drinking from or washing or living with the cup, not through having an image of a cup on a tile. Actual engagement trumps the idea of engagement. How is an installation of ceramic wallpaper more interactive than a mug?
Fariello defines craft as an approach rather than a specific medium or technique. This is a lot like Glenn Adamson’s definition in Thinkin’ Thru Craft, which I also kind of accept and wonder about at the same time. This is an effective definition to theorize why installations with ceramics or weaving get called craft, but maybe less effective when thinking about utilitarian objects.
Fariello also argues for a lexicon for craft that is distinct from art history, but she doesn’t actually say what this would be, or really put it into play, other than listing “hand-marked, holistic, social, functional, tactile, material and spiritual” (40). I don’t see how these are distinct from art history, which can use all of those terms.
The essay ends before Fariello really gets going on any of this, so I’ll have to start reading Objects and Meaning, her own book from 2005.
January 11, 2012 at 6:05 pm
Thank you for having this discussion. I feel it is an important one. There is common theme running through the last few posts. I’ve enjoyed reading them. I find the juxtaposition of craft to art, utility to function, commodity to artifact rather frustrating. These distinctions are arbitrary, artificially superimpose to create aesthetic hierarchies. I suppose it makes it convenient when it is time to stamp the right price tag. The chapter dealing with “naming” sounds a little more promising, I guess I will have to read the book after all. I think the mechanism of naming something as art or craft is powered by social and economic factors; it is a mechanism that separates the high-end consumer from the mass consumer, the common folk, like myself. Talking about the mass consumer, once again, thank you for the New York Times article link about Damien Hirst and the “Dots.” I think this guy is screwing with his patrons. I actually find it funny that people who purchase his work do not realize that he is mocking them. Just when they though they had purchased a piece of art, he turns it into salable, almost conveyor belt produced commodity, turning art purveyor into mass consumer. His dots are like the vanishing McRib. I think he is having a laugh (or a cry), while his franchise style, branded shows are gaining popularity. Perhaps he wants to be insulted; he wants for somebody to call his work “garbage.” May be his intention is to pose the question of whether it is possible, within the existing context, for art to exist. Perhaps all we create is merely a product that becomes art or craft depending on the marketing approach, current flavor of the day, etc.
Oh, one last comment. Utility vs function discussion reminded me of another cynic – Kubric and his “Clockwork Orange” cat-lady scene. Alex and his gang are at the-cat lady’s house, as they enter they see her doing yoga in the room decorated with various sculptural forms (most of phallic nature). When Alex touches her statue, she screams at him not to touch it because it’s a work of art. He ends up killing her using that same statue as a weapon. The lines are thin.
Sorry for the broken English – not my first language.
January 12, 2012 at 10:13 am
Thanks for the comment! I always love when we can bring Clockwork Orange into the conversation.
The thing about distinctions is that they are all somewhat arbitrary, and yet they exist, and that is how we make sense of the world. It is frustrating indeed, but for me it seems somehow worth trying to make sense of. We’ll see how it works out…