Extra/Ordinary

by Buszek, Maria Elena; Mazanti, Louise (CON); Stevens, Dennis (CON); Peterson, Karin E. (CON); Auther, Elissa (CON)

• ISBN13: 9780822347620
• ISBN10: 0822347628
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2011-03-04
• Publisher: Duke Univ Pr

Summary

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 Amerrs"s monumental stitched paintings to Twomeyrs"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/Ordinarytakes 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 underway, 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, to political protests,Extra/Ordinaryis 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.

Author Biography

Maria Elena Buszek is a critic, curator, and Associate Professor of Art History at the University of Colorado, Denver. She is the author of the book Pin-Up Grrrls: Feminism, Sexuality, Popular Culture, also published by Duke University Press.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	p. vii
Acknowledgments	p. xi
Introduction: The Ordinary Made Extra/Ordinary	p. 1
Redefining Craft: New Theory
Making and Naming: The Lexicon of Studio Craft	p. 23
Validity Is in the Eye of the Beholder: Mapping Craft Communities of Practice	p. 43
Super-Objects: Craft as an Aesthetic Position	p. 59
Fabrication and Encounter: When Content Is a Verb	p. 83
Craft Show: In the Realm of ôFine Artsö
How the Ordinary Becomes Extraordinary: The Modern Eye and the Quilt as Art Form	p. 99
Wallpaper, the Decorative, and Contemporary Installation Art	p. 115
Handwork and Hybrids: Recasting the Craft of Letterpress Printing	p. 135
Elastic/Expanding: Contemporary Conceptual Ceramics	p. 153
Craftivism
Craftivist History	p. 175
Rebellious Doilies and Subversive Stitches: Writing a Craftivist History	p. 184
Craft Hard Die Free: Radical Curatorial Strategies for Craftivism	p. 204
Loving Attention: An Outburst of Craft in Contemporary Art	p. 222
New Functions, New Frontiers
Put Your Thing Down, Flip It, and Reverse It: Reimagining Craft Identities Using Tactics of Queer Theory	p. 243
Man Who Make: The ôFlowö of the Amateur Designer/Maker	p. 260
Crochet and the Cosmos: An Interview with Margaret Wertheim	p. 276
Contributors	p. 291
Index	p. 295
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