CRAFT AND KITSCH – SO GOOD THAT IT’S *BAD* PAGE 8

shelves across North America were being trivialized as kitsch and at the same time they were being appropriated and monetized. Jeff Koons’ sculpture of Michael Jackson and Bubbles (1988) from his Banality Series was inspired by German Hummel figurines.25

In 2014 Sir. Roger Scruton “agent provocateur” and noted philosopher wrote of the “strangely enduring power of kitsch” stating:

The worst thing is to be unwittingly guilty of producing kitsch. Far better to produce kitsch deliberately, for then it is not kitsch at all but a kind of sophisticated parody. Pre-emptive kitsch sets quotation marks around actual kitsch, and hopes thereby to save its artistic credentials.26

Given its pithy nature regarding MJ and Bubbles I will continue to quote Scruton

Take a porcelain statue of Michael Jackson cuddling his pet chimpanzee Bubbles, add cheesy colours and a layer of varnish. Set the figures up in the posture of a Madonna and child, endow them with soppy expressions as though challenging the spectator to vomit, and the result is such kitsch that it cannot possibly be kitsch. Jeff Koons must mean something else, we think, something deep and serious that we have missed. Perhaps this work of art is really a comment on kitsch, so that by being explicitly kitsch it becomes meta-kitsch, so to speak.”

And a final mention of gnomes and meta kitsch – in 2009 the German artist Ottmar Höri created an uproar with Dance of/ with the Devil an installation made up of 1,250 gnomes making the Nazi salute. The Guardian’s description began, “Pint sized, plastic and the height of kitsch they may be, but no one in Germany would usually think twice about seeing a garden gnome, given there are 25 million of them across the country.”27

Today kitsch is defined by the OED more broadly as “art, objects, or design considered to be in poor taste because of excessive garishness or sentimentality, but sometimes appreciated in an ironic or knowing way.” Determining whether an object is kitsch always involves considerations of purpose and context. Today, perhaps the most often cited characteristic of kitsch is that it is in bad taste, but that is not enough to make something kitsch today. There must also be an element of display because kitsch objects call attention to themselves and their owners!28

Although kitsch may have lost its horror in the wake of pop and postmodernism, the discourse that high modernism launched against it in the first half of the 20th century was brutal and this negative voice continues to inform attitudes towards kitsch. To its credit, kitsch encouraged serious artists/makers to consider how their work was consumed and by whom. Kitsch also gave agency to the consumer. Like craft, kitsch fostered a renewed interest in the domestic and in everyday things at the expense of High Art, and in both cases their foray into battle resulted in a renewed respect for pattern and decoration. Whether loved or reviled, indulged or condemned, kitsch, like craft, now finds itself afloat in theoretical discourse.

25Koons created three identical works – one sold for US$250,000 in 1988 and US$5.6 million 2001 26Roger Scruton. “The Strangely enduring power of kitsch” A Point of View 12 Dec 2014 BBC https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-30439633 27 Connolly, Kate. “Nazi gnomes cause outcry in Germany.” The Guardian, 14 Oct 2009. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/oct/14/nazi-gnomes-ottmarhorl 28Morreall, John, and Jessica Loy. “Kitsch and Aesthetic Education.” Journal of Aesthetic Education, 23/4 (1989): 63–73

Christopher Savage, The Terrible Teen Years, 2019, ball point pen on paper, 8.5 X 11”

Christopher Savage, The Saucered, 2019, ball point pen on paper, 8.5 X 11”

Marginalia

Alberta Craft Discovery Gallery - Edmonton July 10 - August 21, 2021

Marginalia is an exhibition of collaborative works by Erin Berry and Chris Savage. The two friends grew up together in Victoria, British Columbia and after years of living in different cities and each completing their formal education, they met up at Medalta Historic Clay District in Medicine Hat, Alberta for a month long artist residency. Their artistic process began with the exchange of drawings, discussions and sharing reference imagery. The drawings provided reference points for the development of a decorative vernacular and for the ceramic forms produced over the course of the residency.

The exhibition consisted of a series of drawings by Savage and ceramic tiles and vessels produced by Berry at her Harbourfront Centre studio. The artists mailed the works back and forth to one another to complete them collaboratively; Berry was in Toronto and Savage in Calgary. The result is a series of mail art, narrative works hybridizing the old and new. Incorporating popular cultural aesthetics with classical designs, the drawings and ceramics reflecting upon the persistence and convergence of mythology and conspiracy theories in a playful manner.

Berry and Savage took their cue from the ongoing dramas unfolding online via social media and in the ‘news’ about the American election, fake news, covid, the make America great again campaign, and they also reflected on pop culture cartoon imagery, and the ‘marginalia’ in ancient illuminated texts illustrated by monks. Berry and Savage wanted to use their work to draw attention to the ways that credibility is developed in our society. By focusing on what is happening in the periphery and making work that holds the potential for many readings they highlight the individuality of the embodiment of truth.

Written by Chris Savage

To view the online exhibition and artist talk visit albertacraft.ab.ca/discovery-gallery

About the artists:

Erin Berry is currently a ceramics artist in residence at Harbourfront Centre in Toronto, Canada. She completed her BFA at Concordia University, Montreal and has participated in residencies at Medalta Historic Clay District in Medicine Hat and Guldagergaard International Ceramic Research Centre in Denmark. Her fibre and ceramic works have been shown throughout Canada, and the United States, most recently in Toronto, Montreal and Vermont, with her first solo show taking place at Xchanges Gallery in Victoria, BC in 2007.

Christopher Savage is an artist and designer who grew up in Victoria BC, Canada. He received his Diploma in Visual Art from Camosun College in 2012 and a BFA from the University of Victoria in 2014. Recently he completed his MFA at the University of Calgary and participated in residencies at the Banff Arts Centre, Medalta Historic Clay District and the Calgary Allied Arts Foundation.

Erin Berry & Christopher Savage, Landing Gracefully, 2019, ceramic, underglaze pencil, and glaze, Vase with lid featuring a cat face drawing and mul<coloured glaze blobs, 8.5 X 10”

Erin Berry, Primordial Ooze #1 (detail), 2021, ceramic, grog, and glaze, Wall hanging tile featuring various grog and glaze application, 8.5 X 11” Erin Berry & Christopher Savage, Shunned from the Limelight, 2021, ceramic, underglaze pencil, and glaze, Vase featuring a moth man portrait and mul<coloured glaze 5.5 X 8”

Erin Berry, Primordial Ooze #2 (detail), 2021, ceramic, grog, and glaze, Wall hanging tile featuring various grog and glaze application, 8.5 X 11”

Devon Clark, Breadwinner, 2021 recycled 14Kt yellow gold, plastic tags

The Democracy of Jewellery

Alberta Craft Discovery Gallery - Edmonton August 28 - October 2, 2021

Alberta Craft Gallery - Calgary January 29 - March 5, 2022 CURATOR: Kari Woo PARTICIPATING ARTISTS:

Sarah Alford Devon Clark Jamie Kroeger Louise Perrone Lyndsay Rice Kari Woo

The Democracy of Jewellery asks: What happens when overabundance meets the moment of enchantment? What then happens when this meeting is translated in the studio and then written on the body?

Sarah Alford transforms this space with attention and affection. Alford makes the work with hot glue and a glue gun, a material and tool firmly associated with hobby craft, and which generally, when wielded by practiced hands, means that the glue is unseen, its labour is invisible. However, in these pieces, the glue works upon itself, and it shines as its material tendencies are allowed to surface.

Devon Clark proposes a hierarchy of value in which the small ephemera of consumption might genuinely be the most precious things. The bread clips, the dry-cleaning tags, the mass-produced messaging, become clues to an unseen narrative of personal significance. They are wearable through the addition of unobtrusive findings and chains in silver and gold, and thus the timelessness and value of the metal becomes transferred to the fugitive.

Jamie Kroeger transfers jewellery’s association with the domestic heirloom into the realm of rural implements and industrially sized safety equipment. The physicality of the pieces is underscored with colours that speaks to high visibility, safety, and sometimes, in its creamy richness, to ornament. These works pay tribute to the body and its experience as it tends to a world that might be in danger of breaking away.

Louise Perrone’s Distressed is a series made from used jeans, and the title refers to a mechanical process which gives the denim the look of wear. The pieces remind us, that even before the material became clothing, that it wore the bodies of the garment workers. Perrone’s sews the denim into elements which are fine enough, perhaps, to detect the nearly invisible marks of the hands that have contributed to this collection.

Lyndsay Rice’s investigates jewellery as a system of signs that communicate status. Rice materially analyzes the honorific coding of militaristic badges and the signalling in bird plumage. The hybrid forms reveal the paradox that signs and their meanings are both blissfully arbitrary and utterly natural. They are aristocratically playful, they tip into realm frivolity and delight, and they threaten to take over the conversation.

Kari Woo explores the loss of cultural history. Mater/Matter is composed of black and white family portraits transferred onto the acrylic sheets used in Shrinky Dinks toy kits. These are then sewn together. The visibility of the sewing binds the Woo to the portraits and recalls the corporeality of the absent subject. Woo’s material mediation insists that we face the loss of cultural memory in the terms set by global commodification, which is implicated as a force of assimilation and racism.

Collectively the works embrace open-ended practices which ask the viewer to consider the artists’ relationships to their labour and the world around them. Here we find that when what is precious meets the overwhelming power of overproduction, an object becomes a space of communication, connection, and human contact.

Written by Sarah Alford

To view the online exhibition and artist talk visit albertacraft.ab.ca/discovery-gallery

Kari Woo, Mater Matter, 2020, acrylic shrink film (shrinky dinks), sterling silver, thread, found materials Lyndsay Rice, Honour Badge Series Untitled #1, 2017 fur, powder coat, plastic, dye, sequins, brass, steel Photo Elana Dahl Jamie Kroeger, Waterhauler, 2020, Neckpiece, walnut, copper, steel, enamel, acrylic paint, 40 x 28 x 5cm, Photo Jamie Kroeger

Sarah Alford, Lectures in Art Botany 1, 2021, hot glue, ink Louise Perrone, Patched Necklace, 2019, denim, Styrene

Coming Up Next

Alberta Craft Discovery Gallery - Edmonton October 9 - November 20, 2021 Alberta Craft Gallery - Calgary March 12 - April 23, 2022

Coming Up Next is a national exhibition of emerging Fine Craft Artists working in paper, wood, ceramics, glass, fibre and metal. Artists hailing from B.C. to Nova Scotia submitted beautiful and fascinating work to show. The resulting exhibition is a collection rich in variety of methods and materials, from emerging Canadian artists, who have each forged their own creative paths to learning and mastering their craft.

Celebrating the creativity, innovation, and skill of emerging artists entering the field of contemporary craft in Canada, this biennial group exhibition serves as an important launchpad. It introduces emerging artists to the Alberta Craft Council community (including our sophisticated audience of artists, craft collectors and supporters), and to the professional development services and opportunities that the Alberta Craft Council provides to its members.

The exhibition was curated to feature a diverse representation of traditional and contemporary fine craft disciplines. We welcomed submissions from artists whose path to craft may have begun through apprenticeships, mentorships with elders, those who are self-taught or who received a formal post-secondary craft education. Showing artists within the first five years of their career in fine craft, or the final year of studies in a fine craft discipline. PARTICIPATING ARTISTS:

Graham Boyd (glass) Calgary, AB Si Chen (jewellery, performance) Toronto, ON Lael Chmelyk (ceramics) Calgary, AB Marcy Friesen (beadwork/portraiture) Carrot River, SK Leia Guo (glass/photography) Calgary, AB Esther Imm (quilt) Toronto, ON Daniel Labutes (ceramics) Calgary, AB Jared Last (glass) Revelstoke, BC Sophia Lengle (fibre) Edmonton, AB Meng Qiu (paper/jewellery) Halifax, NS Dalayce Smith (embroidery) Calgary, AB Gillian Tolliver (wood) Toronto, ON Adriane Vant Erve (fibre) Calgary, AB Luke Winterhalt (jewellery) Camrose, AB

To view the online exhibition and artist talk visit albertacraft.ab.ca/discovery-gallery

This page (clockwise): Gillian Tolliver, Spirit Sprout, 2021, burnt basswood, Photo James McLachlan

Jared Last, Circuit, 2020, blown, cut, sand carved glass

Adriane Vant Erve, Tissues Impressions #11, 2019, silk organza, thread, madder

Opposite page: Marcy Friesen, Half Breed, 2021, seed beads and adhesive, silver fox hat, coyote throw, Photo Susan Stewart Photography

This page (top row): Lael Chmelyk, Soda Fired Rx Jar, 2020, soda fired stoneware, Photo Matthew Huitema

(middle row): Dalayce Smith, Reflecting on Covid, 2021, ASCII, embroidery

Esther Imm, quilt without border, 2019, cotton and wool, handquilted

(bottom row) Luke Winterhalt, Raven Cufflinks, 2021, cast silver jewellery

Opposite page (top row): Leia Guo, Chinookon Moraine, 2021, silver gelatin print, blown glass plate

Sophia Lengle, Squares Within Squares, 2020, cotton, soy bean solution, Sumi Ink

(middle row): Meng Qui, Sunny Day Diary Page 69, 2020, magazine, black markers, glue

Graham Boyd, Black and Chrome Stack, 2021, blown glass

(bottom row): Chen Si, Read My Corpse, 2021, copper, enamel, ceramic, green patina Photo Zhongqi PHOTO

Daniel Labutes, Pink Moon, 2021, low fire ceramic

Coveted Craft

Coveted Craft is our in-shop feature where we showcase a selection of objects that we hope will inspire you to bring craft into your daily life. With over 20 new artists introduced in 2021 we now carry the work of over 175 artists in our downtown Edmonton Gallery Shop and 80 artists in our Calgary Gallery Shop at cSPACE.

The Alberta Craft Council continues to present Fine Craft to visitors in a wide array of styles, techniques, and unique expressions of creativity. We have created six unique posters showcasing some of the beautiful craft available to you.

We hope that you’ll take the visually sumptuous centrefold enclosed in these pages and hang it prominently in your home, studio, office or nearby coffeeshop! Let’s proclaim our community’s deep love of Alberta Fine Craft!

Moss series hand built porcelain Marney Delver, Fort Macleod

COVETED CRAFT

EMBRACE MEANINGFUL, BEAUTIFUL FINE CRAFT

Bring Alberta Craft home. Visit us online or in person. 10186 - 106 Street, Edmonton | 1721 - 29 Avenue SW, Calgary

albertacraft.ab.ca

Alberta Craft Council

Culture in the Making Want to share more? Reach out to us for more posters and share your pride and support for Alberta’s craft community by displaying them across Alberta! acc@albertacraft.ab.ca

Bring Alberta Craft home. Visit us online or in person. 10186-106 Street, Edmonton | 1721-29 Avenue SW, Calgary albertacraft.ab.ca

1 Spiked Edge Bowl, Manitoba maple

Herm Stolte, Calgary 2 Felted Shawl with tassels, fibre

Cindy Lee, Calgary 3 Prairie Vase, wheel thrown porcelain and hand painted landscape

Juliana Rempel, Bragg Creek 4 Nesting Bowls, blown and cold worked glass

Jill Allan, Edmonton 5 Bunny Yunomi, wheel-thrown porcelain with carved pattern and hand-painted china paint

Katriona Drijber, Coleman 6 Earrings, oxidized sterling silver with plastic faux pearl drop dangles

Devon Clark, Calgary 7 Lidded Vessel, box elder burl, and diamond willow

Doug Zech, Calgary 8 Scarf, handwoven, snow dyed silk

Deb Turner, Foothills 9 Blown glass vase

Barbara Rumberger, Calgary 10 Stone Necklace, semi-precious stones, hand knotted

Soma Mo, Edmonton 11 Moss series, hand built porcelain

Marney Delver, Fort Macleod 12 Cast Iron Pans

Alex Harris, Edmonton

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