Hand+Made: The Performative Impulse in Art and Craft

Conrad Bakker Nick Cave Cat Chow

HAND+MADE

B Team

Sonya Clark Gabriel Craig Theaster Gates Cynthia Giachetti Ryan Gothrup Sabrina Gschwandtner Christy Matson James Melchert Yuka Otani Sheila Pepe Michael Rea Anne Wilson Saya Woolfalk Bohyun Yoon

ISBN 978-1-933619-26-2

Contemporary Arts Museum Houston

Contemporary Arts Museum Houston

Lauren Kalman

H A N D MADE + The Performative Impulse in Art and Craft

B Team Conrad Bakker Nick Cave Cat Chow Sonya Clark Gabriel Craig Theaster Gates Cynthia Giachetti

H A N D +MADE Ryan Gothrup

Sabrina Gschwandtner

Lauren Kalman

Christy Matson

James Melchert Yuka Otani

Sheila Pepe

Michael Rea

Anne Wilson

Saya Woolfalk

Bohyun Yoon

The Performative Impulse in Art and Craft

B Team Conrad Bakker Nick Cave Cat Chow Sonya Clark Gabriel Craig Theaster Gates Cynthia Giachetti

H A N D +MADE Ryan Gothrup

Sabrina Gschwandtner

Lauren Kalman

Christy Matson

James Melchert Yuka Otani

Sheila Pepe

Michael Rea

Anne Wilson

Saya Woolfalk

Bohyun Yoon

The Performative Impulse in Art and Craft

H A N D MADE + The Performative Impulse in Art and Craft

Valerie Cassel Oliver Essays by

Glenn Adamson Namita Gupta Wiggers

Catalogue entries by

Sarah G. Cassidy

Contemporary Arts Museum Houston

H A N D MADE + The Performative Impulse in Art and Craft

Valerie Cassel Oliver Essays by

Glenn Adamson Namita Gupta Wiggers

Catalogue entries by

Sarah G. Cassidy

Contemporary Arts Museum Houston

The catalogue has been published to accompany the exhibition Hand+Made: The Performative Impulse in Art and Craft, organized by Valerie Cassel Oliver, curator, for the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, May 15 through July 25, 2010.

This exhibition has been made possible by generous support from the Union Pacific Foundation.

The catalogue accompanying the exhibition is made possible by a grant from The Brown Foundation, Inc. The Museum’s operations and programs are made possible through the generosity of the Museum’s trustees, patrons, members, and donors. The Contemporary Arts Museum Houston receives partial operating support from the Houston Endowment, Inc., the City of Houston through the Houston Museum District Association, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Texas Commission on the Arts.

This exhibition and related programs are sponsored in part by Sara and Bill Morgan.

The exhibition has been supported by the patrons, benefactors, and donors to the Museum’s Major Exhibition Fund: Major Patrons Chinhui Juhn and Eddie Allen Fayez Sarofim Michael Zilkha

Contents

Bill Arning

6

Foreword

Valerie Cassel Oliver

8

Acknowledgments

Valerie Cassel Oliver

11

Craft Out of Action

Glenn Adamson

21

Perpetual Motion

Namita Gupta Wiggers

27

Craft Performs

Plates Official airline of the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston.

Sarah G. Cassidy

36

Patrons Mr. and Mrs. A. L. Ballard Mr. and Mrs. I. H. Kempner III Elisa and Cris Pye Ms. Louisa Stude Sarofim Leigh and Reggie Smith Benefactors City Kitchen Catering George and Mary Josephine Hamman Foundation Jackson Hicks / Jackson and Company Marley Lott Beverly and Howard Robinson Susan Vaughan Foundation, Inc. Swift + Company Mr. and Mrs.Wallace Wilson Donors Baker Botts, L.L.P Bergner and Johnson Design Susie and Sanford Criner Elizabeth Howard Crowell Marita and J. B. Fairbanks Jo and Jim Furr Barbara and Michael Gamson Mr. and Mrs.William Goldberg / Bernstein Global Wealth Management Louise D. Jamail King & Spalding L.L.P. KPMG, LLP Judy and Scott Nyquist Lauren Rottet David I. Saperstein Scurlock Foundation Karen and Harry Susman John and Becca Cason Thrash Martha Claire Tompkins

Catalogue Entries B Team

Available through D.A.P./ Distributed Art Publishers, Inc. 155 Sixth Avenue, 2nd Floor New York, New York 10013 Tel: (212) 627-1999 Fax: (212) 627-9484 www.artbook.com

40 44 48 52 56 60 64 68 72 76 80 84 88 92 96 100 104 108

Back cover: Nick Cave, Untitled (Soundsuit), 2009. Mixed media, 106 x 36 x 28 inches. Courtesy the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York

112

Catalogue of the Exhibition

114

Artists’ Biographies

124

Selected Bibliography

128

Contributors

Library of Congress Control Number: 2010902425 ISBN 978-1-933619-26-2 Copyright © 2010 Contemporary Arts Museum Houston All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced without the written permission of the publisher.

All artwork © the artists. Unless otherwise noted, all reproductions courtesy the artists, their galleries, or the owners.

Contemporary Arts Museum Houston 5216 Montrose Boulevard Houston, Texas 77006-6547 Phone: (713) 284-8250 Fax: (713) 284-8275 www.camh.org

Cover: Lauren Kalman, Hard Wear (Tongue Gilding), 2006.

Digital print laminated on acrylic, 35 x 23 inches. Courtesy the artist Title page details, left to right, top to bottom: works by Christy Matson (p. 80), Nick Cave (p. 44), James Melchert (p. 84), B Team (p. 36), Sheila Pepe (p. 92), Theaster Gates (p. 60), Lauren Kalman (p. 76), Saya Woolfalk (p. 104), Anne Wilson (p. 100), and Gabriel Craig (p. 56)

Complied by Sarah G. Cassidy

Conrad Bakker Nick Cave Cat Chow Sonya Clark Gabriel Craig Theaster Gates Cynthia Giachetti Ryan Gothrup Sabrina Gschwandtner Lauren Kalman Christy Matson James Melchert Yuka Otani Sheila Pepe Michael Rea Anne Wilson Saya Woolfalk Bohyun Yoon

The catalogue has been published to accompany the exhibition Hand+Made: The Performative Impulse in Art and Craft, organized by Valerie Cassel Oliver, curator, for the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, May 15 through July 25, 2010.

This exhibition has been made possible by generous support from the Union Pacific Foundation.

The catalogue accompanying the exhibition is made possible by a grant from The Brown Foundation, Inc. The Museum’s operations and programs are made possible through the generosity of the Museum’s trustees, patrons, members, and donors. The Contemporary Arts Museum Houston receives partial operating support from the Houston Endowment, Inc., the City of Houston through the Houston Museum District Association, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Texas Commission on the Arts.

This exhibition and related programs are sponsored in part by Sara and Bill Morgan.

The exhibition has been supported by the patrons, benefactors, and donors to the Museum’s Major Exhibition Fund: Major Patrons Chinhui Juhn and Eddie Allen Fayez Sarofim Michael Zilkha

Contents

Bill Arning

6

Foreword

Valerie Cassel Oliver

8

Acknowledgments

Valerie Cassel Oliver

11

Craft Out of Action

Glenn Adamson

21

Perpetual Motion

Namita Gupta Wiggers

27

Craft Performs

Plates Official airline of the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston.

Sarah G. Cassidy

36

Patrons Mr. and Mrs. A. L. Ballard Mr. and Mrs. I. H. Kempner III Elisa and Cris Pye Ms. Louisa Stude Sarofim Leigh and Reggie Smith Benefactors City Kitchen Catering George and Mary Josephine Hamman Foundation Jackson Hicks / Jackson and Company Marley Lott Beverly and Howard Robinson Susan Vaughan Foundation, Inc. Swift + Company Mr. and Mrs.Wallace Wilson Donors Baker Botts, L.L.P Bergner and Johnson Design Susie and Sanford Criner Elizabeth Howard Crowell Marita and J. B. Fairbanks Jo and Jim Furr Barbara and Michael Gamson Mr. and Mrs.William Goldberg / Bernstein Global Wealth Management Louise D. Jamail King & Spalding L.L.P. KPMG, LLP Judy and Scott Nyquist Lauren Rottet David I. Saperstein Scurlock Foundation Karen and Harry Susman John and Becca Cason Thrash Martha Claire Tompkins

Catalogue Entries B Team

Available through D.A.P./ Distributed Art Publishers, Inc. 155 Sixth Avenue, 2nd Floor New York, New York 10013 Tel: (212) 627-1999 Fax: (212) 627-9484 www.artbook.com

40 44 48 52 56 60 64 68 72 76 80 84 88 92 96 100 104 108

Back cover: Nick Cave, Untitled (Soundsuit), 2009. Mixed media, 106 x 36 x 28 inches. Courtesy the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York

112

Catalogue of the Exhibition

114

Artists’ Biographies

124

Selected Bibliography

128

Contributors

Library of Congress Control Number: 2010902425 ISBN 978-1-933619-26-2 Copyright © 2010 Contemporary Arts Museum Houston All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced without the written permission of the publisher.

All artwork © the artists. Unless otherwise noted, all reproductions courtesy the artists, their galleries, or the owners.

Contemporary Arts Museum Houston 5216 Montrose Boulevard Houston, Texas 77006-6547 Phone: (713) 284-8250 Fax: (713) 284-8275 www.camh.org

Cover: Lauren Kalman, Hard Wear (Tongue Gilding), 2006.

Digital print laminated on acrylic, 35 x 23 inches. Courtesy the artist Title page details, left to right, top to bottom: works by Christy Matson (p. 80), Nick Cave (p. 44), James Melchert (p. 84), B Team (p. 36), Sheila Pepe (p. 92), Theaster Gates (p. 60), Lauren Kalman (p. 76), Saya Woolfalk (p. 104), Anne Wilson (p. 100), and Gabriel Craig (p. 56)

Complied by Sarah G. Cassidy

Conrad Bakker Nick Cave Cat Chow Sonya Clark Gabriel Craig Theaster Gates Cynthia Giachetti Ryan Gothrup Sabrina Gschwandtner Lauren Kalman Christy Matson James Melchert Yuka Otani Sheila Pepe Michael Rea Anne Wilson Saya Woolfalk Bohyun Yoon

6

7

Foreword Since its founding, the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston has been questioning where the field of “fine arts” should begin and end. In the museum’s first exhibition, This Is Contemporary Art of 1948, paintings were installed alongside cuttingedge design and depictions of modern architecture. In effect, fans of the “modern” in art were encouraged to embrace the larger lifestyle of hip modernity in their interior decorating, dress, and homes as well as in their collections of paintings and sculptures. This was a very sexy, progressive proposition for the late 1940s.

It has been suggested that the edgy art that defined that period had as its primary task the need to prove its own viability as art, but once the monochrome and the readymade were accepted as art, anything could be art in theory. So in order to maintain some authority and have at least something declared not art, two areas were demonized: the skilled labor of illustration and the feminized sphere of crafts. Mixing craft with fine art was troubling turf for all the toughminded moderns, perhaps especially the women practitioners who needed to distance themselves from traditional “woman’s work.” The term applied art was opposed to fine art, the purity of which embodied the loftiest goals for culture, while utilitarian objects were considered intrinsically inferior.

Starting in the 1970s, however, with the Pattern and Decoration movement and developments of the 1990s such as “third-wave” feminist art and the tidal wave of queer practitioners, craft proved a simple-to-use tool of seditionary power. Still this battle was pretty much won by the early 2000s, when even the most hard-boiled radical painters wept before the sheer beauty of the quilts from Gee’s Bend and other similarly cherished works by craft practitioners.

In Hand+Made: The Performative Impulse in Art and Craft, Curator Valerie Cassel Oliver has found a new lens through which to consider the point where the divisions between craft and fine art collapse—that of the action required to make each piece. If we see a woven basket, we imagine its weaving. If we see a thrown pot, we imagine its throwing. Two of the big stories in art over the last decade or so have been the reintroduction of live art in the gallery/museum sphere and the dominance of so-called relational art practices, which create a context in which audiences come together to engage in a shared activity or experience. Thanks once again to CAMH’s curatorial muscle, Hand+Made reimagines the familiar discourse on “craft” to meaningfully engage some of the key issues and fundamental definitions of current art practice.

I would like to thank the artists for letting us work with them in all their riskiest undertakings. All art with a live element entails the possibility that works may fail in public or, at the very least, be uncontrollable and turn out differently than intended. But CAMH, as a noncollecting space dedicated to the art of the moment, has as its institutional mission such risk taking, and I would like to thank the artists for leading the way into the realm of experimentation and allowing us to fulfill that crucial task.

We are overjoyed to be able to welcome as collaborators in the live art presentations during Hand+Made the Houston Museum of African American Culture; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Project Row Houses; and Hope Stone Dance Company. Houston benefits when our arts organizations work together, so I look forward to many more programs with them in the future. I also wish to thank the members of the public who will overcome the normal fear of strangers and participate in many of the works. I am sure that you will have a blast. Paula Newton, our director of education and public programs, will be shepherding these live

events from dream to reality, and while I know there will be times when she might regret the sheer quantity of live events during the show, her dedication to artistic experimentation and the experience of our audience is so tremendous that she warrants a special shout-out here.

On behalf of the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, I would like to express my profound gratitude to the Brown Foundation, Inc., of Houston, which has continued its generous support of our publications program so that the ingenious context for craft-based art that Valerie has dreamed up can be documented for posterity and so that her complex themes can be explored in depth. That is a rare privilege for a museum of CAMH’s scale. The contributors to the catalogue, by adding their unique voices, have broadened that vision, so I extend special thanks to Glenn Adamson, Sarah G. Cassidy, and Namita Gupta Wiggers for their exemplary commentary.

I am also particularly appreciative of the support that we have received from our donors to the museum’s Major Exhibition Fund. This group of arts patrons makes our function for the region possible and helps not just CAMH but also the entire vivid arts ecology of greater Houston. Their ongoing yearly support affirms their belief in our curatorial dream team’s ability to generate new projects that shape the contemporary art discussion in Houston, the region, the country, and the world. Union Pacific Foundation has also proved to be a loyal sponsor of CAMH exhibitions, and we salute them for their vision for the role of advanced culture in the daily life of the city. I would also like to thank Sara and Bill Morgan for their support of this exhibition and its programs. They are experts and great believers in the crucial place of craft forms in a high-art context, and I am thrilled that they are part of this exhibition.

And I would like to send a final word of thanks to all the men and women who come to work here at the museum every day. Without them these exciting works would never be performed, staged, and installed before the public, never danced, knitted, crafted, thrown, fired, shattered, or unraveled, and without their dedication to art and artists the world would be a poorer place. We cannot thank you enough.

Bill Arning Director

6

7

Foreword Since its founding, the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston has been questioning where the field of “fine arts” should begin and end. In the museum’s first exhibition, This Is Contemporary Art of 1948, paintings were installed alongside cuttingedge design and depictions of modern architecture. In effect, fans of the “modern” in art were encouraged to embrace the larger lifestyle of hip modernity in their interior decorating, dress, and homes as well as in their collections of paintings and sculptures. This was a very sexy, progressive proposition for the late 1940s.

It has been suggested that the edgy art that defined that period had as its primary task the need to prove its own viability as art, but once the monochrome and the readymade were accepted as art, anything could be art in theory. So in order to maintain some authority and have at least something declared not art, two areas were demonized: the skilled labor of illustration and the feminized sphere of crafts. Mixing craft with fine art was troubling turf for all the toughminded moderns, perhaps especially the women practitioners who needed to distance themselves from traditional “woman’s work.” The term applied art was opposed to fine art, the purity of which embodied the loftiest goals for culture, while utilitarian objects were considered intrinsically inferior.

Starting in the 1970s, however, with the Pattern and Decoration movement and developments of the 1990s such as “third-wave” feminist art and the tidal wave of queer practitioners, craft proved a simple-to-use tool of seditionary power. Still this battle was pretty much won by the early 2000s, when even the most hard-boiled radical painters wept before the sheer beauty of the quilts from Gee’s Bend and other similarly cherished works by craft practitioners.

In Hand+Made: The Performative Impulse in Art and Craft, Curator Valerie Cassel Oliver has found a new lens through which to consider the point where the divisions between craft and fine art collapse—that of the action required to make each piece. If we see a woven basket, we imagine its weaving. If we see a thrown pot, we imagine its throwing. Two of the big stories in art over the last decade or so have been the reintroduction of live art in the gallery/museum sphere and the dominance of so-called relational art practices, which create a context in which audiences come together to engage in a shared activity or experience. Thanks once again to CAMH’s curatorial muscle, Hand+Made reimagines the familiar discourse on “craft” to meaningfully engage some of the key issues and fundamental definitions of current art practice.

I would like to thank the artists for letting us work with them in all their riskiest undertakings. All art with a live element entails the possibility that works may fail in public or, at the very least, be uncontrollable and turn out differently than intended. But CAMH, as a noncollecting space dedicated to the art of the moment, has as its institutional mission such risk taking, and I would like to thank the artists for leading the way into the realm of experimentation and allowing us to fulfill that crucial task.

We are overjoyed to be able to welcome as collaborators in the live art presentations during Hand+Made the Houston Museum of African American Culture; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Project Row Houses; and Hope Stone Dance Company. Houston benefits when our arts organizations work together, so I look forward to many more programs with them in the future. I also wish to thank the members of the public who will overcome the normal fear of strangers and participate in many of the works. I am sure that you will have a blast. Paula Newton, our director of education and public programs, will be shepherding these live

events from dream to reality, and while I know there will be times when she might regret the sheer quantity of live events during the show, her dedication to artistic experimentation and the experience of our audience is so tremendous that she warrants a special shout-out here.

On behalf of the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, I would like to express my profound gratitude to the Brown Foundation, Inc., of Houston, which has continued its generous support of our publications program so that the ingenious context for craft-based art that Valerie has dreamed up can be documented for posterity and so that her complex themes can be explored in depth. That is a rare privilege for a museum of CAMH’s scale. The contributors to the catalogue, by adding their unique voices, have broadened that vision, so I extend special thanks to Glenn Adamson, Sarah G. Cassidy, and Namita Gupta Wiggers for their exemplary commentary.

I am also particularly appreciative of the support that we have received from our donors to the museum’s Major Exhibition Fund. This group of arts patrons makes our function for the region possible and helps not just CAMH but also the entire vivid arts ecology of greater Houston. Their ongoing yearly support affirms their belief in our curatorial dream team’s ability to generate new projects that shape the contemporary art discussion in Houston, the region, the country, and the world. Union Pacific Foundation has also proved to be a loyal sponsor of CAMH exhibitions, and we salute them for their vision for the role of advanced culture in the daily life of the city. I would also like to thank Sara and Bill Morgan for their support of this exhibition and its programs. They are experts and great believers in the crucial place of craft forms in a high-art context, and I am thrilled that they are part of this exhibition.

And I would like to send a final word of thanks to all the men and women who come to work here at the museum every day. Without them these exciting works would never be performed, staged, and installed before the public, never danced, knitted, crafted, thrown, fired, shattered, or unraveled, and without their dedication to art and artists the world would be a poorer place. We cannot thank you enough.

Bill Arning Director

8

9

Acknowledgments Hand+Made: The Performative Impulse in Art and Craft initially began as a query into the contemporary dynamics of art and craft. In the current cultural landscape— in which the do-it-yourself, or DIY, concept is pervasive—the discourse surrounding the relationship between art and craft is primed for a broad and eager audience. This is evident in the numerous exhibitions that have been presented over the last decade that have examined the evolution within specific media, such as fiber, ceramics, glass, and metalwork. I owe a debt of gratitude to the organizers of those exhibitions and to the contemporary art curators who have documented the convergence of craft techniques into the contemporary art sphere. Having such a rich repository of inquiry served to fuel my own investigation, which began innocently enough as a historical look at “craft” artists who transcended the boundaries of the genre and were presented in the “fine art” context. Little did I know of the internal debates that have continually surfaced regarding the perpetuation of such a hierarchy and the desperate need to “break with the binary” that such language provoked.

I owe a debt of gratitude to early discussions with colleagues Cindi Strauss, curator, contemporary and decorative arts and design, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and Gwynne Rukenbrod, curator of fine craft, Houston Center for Contemporary Craft.Their candid conversations served as my brief immersion in Contemporary Craft 101. And for his invaluable dialogue via lengthy e-mail exchanges, I owe much to Glenn Adamson, head of graduate studies and deputy head of research, Victoria and Albert Museum, for challenging me to dig deeper. Glenn was an invaluable resource, and I am grateful to both him and Namita Gupta Wiggers, curator of the Museum of Contemporary Craft in partnership with the Pacific Northwest College of Art, Portland, for their contributions to this project and its publication. In addition to the aforementioned, colleagues at other institutions were immensely helpful, and I want to thank Andrew Blauvelt, curator and director of design, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Andrea Barnwell Brownlee, director, Spelman College Museum of Fine Art, Atlanta; Romi Crawford, professor, visual and critical studies, the Art Institute of Chicago; Elizabeth Dunbar, associate director and curator, and Sue Graze, executive director,Arthouse,Austin; Clare Rudd, associate director, Fluent~Collaborative,Austin; and Jane Simon, curator of exhibitions, Madison Museum of Contemporary Art. This journey was filled with fits and starts, and I can think of no one better to accompany me on this adventure than my former intern Sarah G. Cassidy. Her keen knowledge and eagerness to contribute can be seen in the insightful artists’ entries that she wrote for this catalogue. Many artists, some featured in this exhibition, were also wonderful resources for me, and in particular I want to thank Cat Chow, Sonya Clark, Gabriel Craig, Theaster Gates, James Melchert, Sheila Pepe, and Anne Wilson for indulging me in long conversations.

It is never easy to “educate oneself in public,” but I am extremely thankful to the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston and Director Bill Arning for encouraging me to reach. Senior Curator Toby Kamps was also very supportive of this endeavor.

No project with as many tentacles as this one can be undertaken without the full support and encouragement of the museum staff, and I want to thank each of my colleagues for all that they do to make such ambitious concepts as these a reality.

Special thanks to Paula Newton, director of education and public programs, and her staff, who have unselfishly worked to ensure that many of the activities surrounding this exhibition, namely, the public performances, are carefully planned and coordinated. They played a significant role in the development of key collaborations among local organizations that will work with some of the featured artists to bring

many of the performances into public view. We are grateful to Hope Stone Dance Company, the Houston African American Museum Project, the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft, Musiqua, and Project Row Houses for their generous spirit in working with us on this project. For her efforts in coordinating various aspects of the exhibition and this publication, I am indebted to Justine Waitkus, curatorial manager.

Tim Barkley, registrar, ably managed loan agreements and complicated shipping arrangements. Jeff Shore, head preparator, also deserves a special thank-you for his exceptional exhibition design and installation talents, and Andriano Balajadia, computer and Web manager, was invaluable in enabling many of the performances to be brought to the museum’s extended public via live and prerecorded Web streaming. I am also appreciative of the museum’s communications and marketing manager, Connie McAllister; her diligence ensures this project’s visibility among the arts community and the general public. And last but not least, Amber Winsor, director of development, and her team deserve special thanks for their enormous efforts in securing much-needed funding for this project.

While he is not on staff at the museum, Don Quaintance of Public Address Design is an integral component of the institution. The significance of the museum’s publications over the past two decades is a testament to his brilliance and talent. He is ably assisted by Elizabeth Frizzell. I also owe much to our gifted editor, Karen Jacobson, who inaugurates her relationship with the museum with this publication. And I would be remiss to omit the museum’s own copy editor, Cheryl Blissitte, assistant to the director, who relished the opportunity to read, with amazing attention to detail, each incarnation of this catalogue, from draft to final copy. I thank the following individuals for their assistance in providing images for the book: Sarah Archer, director, Greenwich House Pottery, New York; Sheila Hicks; Kathleen Nugent Mangan, administrative director, Lenore G. Tawney Foundation; Jill McKenna and Lili Kane, R 20th Century Gallery; Magda Sayeg, KnittaPlease; and Tiffany Tyler, Fischbach Gallery, New York.

I want to thank James Dozier and the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art for lending works from their collections. I would also like to acknowledge the galleries that provided crucial assistance in securing work: Jack Shainman Gallery, New York; Kavi Gupta Gallery, Chicago; Lora Reynolds Gallery, Austin; Rhona Hoffman Gallery, Chicago; and R 20th Century Gallery, New York. For their willingness to develop new work for this exhibition or to restage seminal performances, I owe a debt of gratitude to Conrad Bakker, Nick Cave, Gabriel Craig, Theaster Gates, Cynthia Giachetti, Christy Matson, James Melchert, Yuka Otani, Sheila Pepe, Michael Rea, and Anne Wilson. Theaster Gates’s work for the exhibition was supported in part by Arts/Industry, a long-term residency program of the John Michael Kohler Arts Center, funded by the Kohler Co. and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Finally, I would also like to thank all the artists featured in this exhibition— B Team, Conrad Bakker, Nick Cave, Cat Chow, Sonya Clark, Gabriel Craig, Theaster Gates, Cynthia Giachetti, Ryan Gothrup, Sabrina Gschwandtner, Lauren Kalman, Christy Matson, James Melchert, Yuka Otani, Sheila Pepe, Michael Rea, Anne Wilson, Saya Woolfalk, and Bohyun Yoon—for entrusting me with their work and for inspiring this project. This exhibition would not have been possible without your persistence and extraordinary talent.

Valerie Cassel Oliver Curator

8

9

Acknowledgments Hand+Made: The Performative Impulse in Art and Craft initially began as a query into the contemporary dynamics of art and craft. In the current cultural landscape— in which the do-it-yourself, or DIY, concept is pervasive—the discourse surrounding the relationship between art and craft is primed for a broad and eager audience. This is evident in the numerous exhibitions that have been presented over the last decade that have examined the evolution within specific media, such as fiber, ceramics, glass, and metalwork. I owe a debt of gratitude to the organizers of those exhibitions and to the contemporary art curators who have documented the convergence of craft techniques into the contemporary art sphere. Having such a rich repository of inquiry served to fuel my own investigation, which began innocently enough as a historical look at “craft” artists who transcended the boundaries of the genre and were presented in the “fine art” context. Little did I know of the internal debates that have continually surfaced regarding the perpetuation of such a hierarchy and the desperate need to “break with the binary” that such language provoked.

I owe a debt of gratitude to early discussions with colleagues Cindi Strauss, curator, contemporary and decorative arts and design, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and Gwynne Rukenbrod, curator of fine craft, Houston Center for Contemporary Craft.Their candid conversations served as my brief immersion in Contemporary Craft 101. And for his invaluable dialogue via lengthy e-mail exchanges, I owe much to Glenn Adamson, head of graduate studies and deputy head of research, Victoria and Albert Museum, for challenging me to dig deeper. Glenn was an invaluable resource, and I am grateful to both him and Namita Gupta Wiggers, curator of the Museum of Contemporary Craft in partnership with the Pacific Northwest College of Art, Portland, for their contributions to this project and its publication. In addition to the aforementioned, colleagues at other institutions were immensely helpful, and I want to thank Andrew Blauvelt, curator and director of design, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Andrea Barnwell Brownlee, director, Spelman College Museum of Fine Art, Atlanta; Romi Crawford, professor, visual and critical studies, the Art Institute of Chicago; Elizabeth Dunbar, associate director and curator, and Sue Graze, executive director,Arthouse,Austin; Clare Rudd, associate director, Fluent~Collaborative,Austin; and Jane Simon, curator of exhibitions, Madison Museum of Contemporary Art. This journey was filled with fits and starts, and I can think of no one better to accompany me on this adventure than my former intern Sarah G. Cassidy. Her keen knowledge and eagerness to contribute can be seen in the insightful artists’ entries that she wrote for this catalogue. Many artists, some featured in this exhibition, were also wonderful resources for me, and in particular I want to thank Cat Chow, Sonya Clark, Gabriel Craig, Theaster Gates, James Melchert, Sheila Pepe, and Anne Wilson for indulging me in long conversations.

It is never easy to “educate oneself in public,” but I am extremely thankful to the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston and Director Bill Arning for encouraging me to reach. Senior Curator Toby Kamps was also very supportive of this endeavor.

No project with as many tentacles as this one can be undertaken without the full support and encouragement of the museum staff, and I want to thank each of my colleagues for all that they do to make such ambitious concepts as these a reality.

Special thanks to Paula Newton, director of education and public programs, and her staff, who have unselfishly worked to ensure that many of the activities surrounding this exhibition, namely, the public performances, are carefully planned and coordinated. They played a significant role in the development of key collaborations among local organizations that will work with some of the featured artists to bring

many of the performances into public view. We are grateful to Hope Stone Dance Company, the Houston African American Museum Project, the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft, Musiqua, and Project Row Houses for their generous spirit in working with us on this project. For her efforts in coordinating various aspects of the exhibition and this publication, I am indebted to Justine Waitkus, curatorial manager.

Tim Barkley, registrar, ably managed loan agreements and complicated shipping arrangements. Jeff Shore, head preparator, also deserves a special thank-you for his exceptional exhibition design and installation talents, and Andriano Balajadia, computer and Web manager, was invaluable in enabling many of the performances to be brought to the museum’s extended public via live and prerecorded Web streaming. I am also appreciative of the museum’s communications and marketing manager, Connie McAllister; her diligence ensures this project’s visibility among the arts community and the general public. And last but not least, Amber Winsor, director of development, and her team deserve special thanks for their enormous efforts in securing much-needed funding for this project.

While he is not on staff at the museum, Don Quaintance of Public Address Design is an integral component of the institution. The significance of the museum’s publications over the past two decades is a testament to his brilliance and talent. He is ably assisted by Elizabeth Frizzell. I also owe much to our gifted editor, Karen Jacobson, who inaugurates her relationship with the museum with this publication. And I would be remiss to omit the museum’s own copy editor, Cheryl Blissitte, assistant to the director, who relished the opportunity to read, with amazing attention to detail, each incarnation of this catalogue, from draft to final copy. I thank the following individuals for their assistance in providing images for the book: Sarah Archer, director, Greenwich House Pottery, New York; Sheila Hicks; Kathleen Nugent Mangan, administrative director, Lenore G. Tawney Foundation; Jill McKenna and Lili Kane, R 20th Century Gallery; Magda Sayeg, KnittaPlease; and Tiffany Tyler, Fischbach Gallery, New York.

I want to thank James Dozier and the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art for lending works from their collections. I would also like to acknowledge the galleries that provided crucial assistance in securing work: Jack Shainman Gallery, New York; Kavi Gupta Gallery, Chicago; Lora Reynolds Gallery, Austin; Rhona Hoffman Gallery, Chicago; and R 20th Century Gallery, New York. For their willingness to develop new work for this exhibition or to restage seminal performances, I owe a debt of gratitude to Conrad Bakker, Nick Cave, Gabriel Craig, Theaster Gates, Cynthia Giachetti, Christy Matson, James Melchert, Yuka Otani, Sheila Pepe, Michael Rea, and Anne Wilson. Theaster Gates’s work for the exhibition was supported in part by Arts/Industry, a long-term residency program of the John Michael Kohler Arts Center, funded by the Kohler Co. and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Finally, I would also like to thank all the artists featured in this exhibition— B Team, Conrad Bakker, Nick Cave, Cat Chow, Sonya Clark, Gabriel Craig, Theaster Gates, Cynthia Giachetti, Ryan Gothrup, Sabrina Gschwandtner, Lauren Kalman, Christy Matson, James Melchert, Yuka Otani, Sheila Pepe, Michael Rea, Anne Wilson, Saya Woolfalk, and Bohyun Yoon—for entrusting me with their work and for inspiring this project. This exhibition would not have been possible without your persistence and extraordinary talent.

Valerie Cassel Oliver Curator

11

Craft Out of Action VA L E R I E C A S S E L O L I V E R

Craft only exists in motion. —Glenn Adamson1

Fig. 1 Peter Voulkos conducting a public workshop in pottery making at Greenwich House Pottery, New York, ca. 1962

Craft is inextricably linked to performance.As a genre predicated upon process, it requires the doer or practitioner to undertake a series of tasks in the creation of an object regardless of its material composition. Historically, performance, in the form of demonstrations, served as a means by which craftspeople could share their practices and techniques with other artisans and the general public.

Such demonstrations, common features at world’s fairs and regional festivals, ensured the persistence and viability of particular forms, the mass marketing of products, the dissemination of techniques, and the introduction of new materials. In short, performance was utilized not only to educate but also to reinforce the relevance of craft in the larger social and cultural sphere. This demonstrative aspect of craft performance provides a salient entry point for a discussion of performance as a catalyst and as an interloper to tradition. What if we step away from the concept of craft practice as demonstrative and into the dimension of craft practice as performance art, in which process is viewed as spectacle and workshops and collaborations function as participatory events in which the object is not just created but also used as an expressive element within a performance?

The latter approach finds its antecedents in the seminal work of artists who emerged in the aftermath of World War II. Many were academically trained in studio programs that were built upon philosophies developed at the Bauhaus, the German school that integrated craft practices with more traditional fine arts media such as painting, sculpture, and the performing arts (see fig. 2). One of the key objectives of the Bauhaus was to unify art, craft, and technology, and its teachers rejected the notion of a hierarchy among media or materials. In the years leading up to the war, many teachers and students from the Bauhaus, as well as other European artists, immigrated to the United States. Their presence

11

Craft Out of Action VA L E R I E C A S S E L O L I V E R

Craft only exists in motion. —Glenn Adamson1

Fig. 1 Peter Voulkos conducting a public workshop in pottery making at Greenwich House Pottery, New York, ca. 1962

Craft is inextricably linked to performance.As a genre predicated upon process, it requires the doer or practitioner to undertake a series of tasks in the creation of an object regardless of its material composition. Historically, performance, in the form of demonstrations, served as a means by which craftspeople could share their practices and techniques with other artisans and the general public.

Such demonstrations, common features at world’s fairs and regional festivals, ensured the persistence and viability of particular forms, the mass marketing of products, the dissemination of techniques, and the introduction of new materials. In short, performance was utilized not only to educate but also to reinforce the relevance of craft in the larger social and cultural sphere. This demonstrative aspect of craft performance provides a salient entry point for a discussion of performance as a catalyst and as an interloper to tradition. What if we step away from the concept of craft practice as demonstrative and into the dimension of craft practice as performance art, in which process is viewed as spectacle and workshops and collaborations function as participatory events in which the object is not just created but also used as an expressive element within a performance?

The latter approach finds its antecedents in the seminal work of artists who emerged in the aftermath of World War II. Many were academically trained in studio programs that were built upon philosophies developed at the Bauhaus, the German school that integrated craft practices with more traditional fine arts media such as painting, sculpture, and the performing arts (see fig. 2). One of the key objectives of the Bauhaus was to unify art, craft, and technology, and its teachers rejected the notion of a hierarchy among media or materials. In the years leading up to the war, many teachers and students from the Bauhaus, as well as other European artists, immigrated to the United States. Their presence

12

13

Fig. 2 The full company of Das Triadische Ballett (The Triadic Ballet), a Bauhaus production, Metropol Theater, Berlin, 1926, with costumes by Oskar Schlemmer

in universities, colleges, and design institutes contributed to paradigmatic shifts in studio art programs. Schools such as Yale University on the East Coast, California College of Arts and Crafts on the West Coast, and Black Mountain College in the South provided the foundation for an experimental ethos that would reshape the direction of art in the 1950s, eventually altering the course of contemporary art.2 Central to this new direction was a reexamination of the rigid boundaries between disciplines and a questioning of traditional hierarchies that separated “applied” art from “fine” art. Many new forms of art practice that emerged in the postwar era were characterized by an emphasis on performance, materiality, and process. The notion of performance as creative expression and not as mere demonstration proved essential to all facets of art making, transforming the creation of art from a solitary practice to one of spectacle, engaging the public as knowing or unsuspecting collaborators.3 Craft, like the fine arts, was influenced by the social, political, and cultural upheavals of the postwar period as well as by rapid advancements in technology. In addition, the establishment and expansion of studio art programs that integrated craft with other visual art disciplines led to a professionalization of craft and a broader definition of the field. Untethered from its traditional boundaries, postwar American craft began to engage with the avant-garde practices of the day. From within this context arose a generation of artists whose work deemphasized the utilitarian nature of the object, instead exploring the conceptual and contextual issues surrounding object making as well as the philosophical and social concerns that occupied their contemporaries in the art world, such as existentialism, aesthetic hierarchies, and the commercialization of art, identity, and culture.4 Early experiments with glass, ceramics, and fiber provide evidence not only of craft’s newfound autonomy from function but also of its engagement

Fig. 3 Lenore Tawney Four-Armed Cloud, 1979 Knotted thread 10 x 22 x 22 feet With dancer Andy deGroat; installation view at the New Jersey State Museum, Trenton

with the art movements of the 1950s and 1960s.5 Pioneers like fiber artists Lenore Tawney, Claire Zeisler, and Sheila Hicks, as well as ceramist Peter Voulkos and glass artist Harvey Littleton, were expanding the boundaries of craft, skillfully excising function while elevating materiality and the objectness of the object. Works such as Tawney’s Cloud series were environments that enveloped the viewer and transformed space (fig. 3), and the production of objects, as practiced by Hicks and Voulkos, often incorporated collaboration and communal, if not public, engagement.6 By the close of the 1960s continued experimentation with material, form, and presentation resulted in new hybrid forms that further transgressed traditional boundaries. Lucy Lippard’s seminal exhibition Eccentric Abstraction (1966; fig. 4) chronicled an important extension of this new hybridity, in which sculptural objects were created using techniques, materials, and even presentation ideas drawn from craft. Some of the works featured also shared a unique blueprint in that they were created out of “actions,” performative events that involved the body.Among the artists featured in the exhibition were Eva Hesse, who attended Yale University and studied with Josef and Anni Albers, and Bruce Nauman, who studied with San Francisco ceramist and Funk Art pioneer Robert Arneson.7 In developing the overall concept for the exhibition, Lippard was heavily influenced by conversations with her friend Allan Kaprow and his assertion that emerging minimalist art was not user-friendly. With this in mind, Lippard sought out and collectively engaged eight artists whose works, by Kaprow’s criteria, offered “an organic, soft and huggable presence.”8 Although Eccentric Abstraction helped introduce the concept of Postminimalism into the art historical lexicon in the late 1960s, the works presented in the exhibition— which employed untraditional materials and engaged ideas surrounding corporeality and performance—marked a significant shift in how process, material, and objects were viewed in the realm of fine art, radically shifting the paradigm

12

13

Fig. 2 The full company of Das Triadische Ballett (The Triadic Ballet), a Bauhaus production, Metropol Theater, Berlin, 1926, with costumes by Oskar Schlemmer

in universities, colleges, and design institutes contributed to paradigmatic shifts in studio art programs. Schools such as Yale University on the East Coast, California College of Arts and Crafts on the West Coast, and Black Mountain College in the South provided the foundation for an experimental ethos that would reshape the direction of art in the 1950s, eventually altering the course of contemporary art.2 Central to this new direction was a reexamination of the rigid boundaries between disciplines and a questioning of traditional hierarchies that separated “applied” art from “fine” art. Many new forms of art practice that emerged in the postwar era were characterized by an emphasis on performance, materiality, and process. The notion of performance as creative expression and not as mere demonstration proved essential to all facets of art making, transforming the creation of art from a solitary practice to one of spectacle, engaging the public as knowing or unsuspecting collaborators.3 Craft, like the fine arts, was influenced by the social, political, and cultural upheavals of the postwar period as well as by rapid advancements in technology. In addition, the establishment and expansion of studio art programs that integrated craft with other visual art disciplines led to a professionalization of craft and a broader definition of the field. Untethered from its traditional boundaries, postwar American craft began to engage with the avant-garde practices of the day. From within this context arose a generation of artists whose work deemphasized the utilitarian nature of the object, instead exploring the conceptual and contextual issues surrounding object making as well as the philosophical and social concerns that occupied their contemporaries in the art world, such as existentialism, aesthetic hierarchies, and the commercialization of art, identity, and culture.4 Early experiments with glass, ceramics, and fiber provide evidence not only of craft’s newfound autonomy from function but also of its engagement

Fig. 3 Lenore Tawney Four-Armed Cloud, 1979 Knotted thread 10 x 22 x 22 feet With dancer Andy deGroat; installation view at the New Jersey State Museum, Trenton

with the art movements of the 1950s and 1960s.5 Pioneers like fiber artists Lenore Tawney, Claire Zeisler, and Sheila Hicks, as well as ceramist Peter Voulkos and glass artist Harvey Littleton, were expanding the boundaries of craft, skillfully excising function while elevating materiality and the objectness of the object. Works such as Tawney’s Cloud series were environments that enveloped the viewer and transformed space (fig. 3), and the production of objects, as practiced by Hicks and Voulkos, often incorporated collaboration and communal, if not public, engagement.6 By the close of the 1960s continued experimentation with material, form, and presentation resulted in new hybrid forms that further transgressed traditional boundaries. Lucy Lippard’s seminal exhibition Eccentric Abstraction (1966; fig. 4) chronicled an important extension of this new hybridity, in which sculptural objects were created using techniques, materials, and even presentation ideas drawn from craft. Some of the works featured also shared a unique blueprint in that they were created out of “actions,” performative events that involved the body.Among the artists featured in the exhibition were Eva Hesse, who attended Yale University and studied with Josef and Anni Albers, and Bruce Nauman, who studied with San Francisco ceramist and Funk Art pioneer Robert Arneson.7 In developing the overall concept for the exhibition, Lippard was heavily influenced by conversations with her friend Allan Kaprow and his assertion that emerging minimalist art was not user-friendly. With this in mind, Lippard sought out and collectively engaged eight artists whose works, by Kaprow’s criteria, offered “an organic, soft and huggable presence.”8 Although Eccentric Abstraction helped introduce the concept of Postminimalism into the art historical lexicon in the late 1960s, the works presented in the exhibition— which employed untraditional materials and engaged ideas surrounding corporeality and performance—marked a significant shift in how process, material, and objects were viewed in the realm of fine art, radically shifting the paradigm

14

15

Fig. 4 Installation view of Eccentric Abstraction, Fischbach Gallery, New York, 1966, showing works by (clockwise from top) Frank Lincoln Viner, Eva Hesse, Don Potts, and Keith Sonnier

surrounding art and art practices. Hesse’s compulsively wrapped, coiled, threaded, and layered work embodied a crafts approach to sculpture, while Nauman’s works referenced objects created out of an action or a performance.9 The work of Hesse and Nauman would come to represent two different strands of art practice involving craft and performance that would continue to evolve in the following decades.

Extensions into performance and performativity fed into the autonomy of craft and also left an indelible imprint on the potential of contemporary expression not only to create theater but also to tear down the “fourth wall,” which relegated the viewer to a passive role. The art that would emerge in the 1960s would, regardless of genre, push beyond the traditional boundaries and demand an active audience. For contemporary craft, the practice of incorporating the object or the process of creating the object into a sort of participatory theater or a theater of spectacle continued in the ensuing decades and into the new millennium. To date, the integration of the visual and the performing arts remains as pervasive and persistent as the utilitarian threads of the craft genre.

It has provided the expansive framework for Hand+Made: The Peformative Impulse in Art and Craft, which looks at craft and performativity from a variety of perspectives, including the porous walls of the theater of spectacle and participatory theater, the use of the body in performance to animate or in some cases alter the handmade object, and objects that are intended to “perform” by transforming over time through deterioration or regeneration.

In the early years of autonomous craft practices, artists such as Peter Voulkos and Sheila Hicks staged performative events in which they experimented with a variety of techniques in creating works of art. While the scale

Fig. 5 Sheila Hicks weaving on a backstrap loom, Oaxaca, Mexico, 1960

of their projects seemed to mandate more elaborate processes of creation, literally liberating each from the traditional potter’s wheel or loom, respectively, the concept of performance seemed as organic as it was intentional. The concept of participatory theater in this process really spoke to the extension of their practices beyond that of the solitary worker and into the realm of collective creation.10 As the scale of the work shifted, so did the corporeal relationship to its process. The focus was no longer on the hands but rather on the entire body and the necessity for other bodies. Art-making events frequently involved collaborators or participants as well as incidental audiences. Hicks’s works were often created in established workshops where the artist would not only experiment with off-loom apparatuses to create woven sculptural works but would also collaborate with local artisans to explore indigenous methods of traditional weaving (fig. 5), in effect creating new techniques for her massive art forms.11 These large-scale works produced from Hicks’s collaborative creative events would oftentimes function as environments for the viewer. The artist would later continue to work with collaborators, incorporating found objects and recycled materials into her works.

Voulkos too emphasized performative actions and processes in the creation of his works (fig. 1). He would rework preconstructed vessels, essentially deconstructing and reconstructing them until he achieved a satisfactory effect.

Voulkos’s large-scale works often involved students as well as fellow artists, who would collaborate with him in workshop-like settings, shifting between participatory theater and theater of spectacle.12 While the concept of participatory theater is more often used in a context in which process, rather than the finished object, is the goal, it is important to note that in earlier craft-based performative events, objects remained a steadfast and intentional goal. This would of course evolve over time, and one critical shift in this discourse with relation to participatory theater occurred in the 1970s with the work of a former student of Voulkos, James Melchert.

Melchert initially studied art history but turned to a studio practice in ceramics soon after meeting Voulkos. Captivated by Voulkos’s radical use of the body to create with clay off the wheel and his active engagement with audiences, as well as by his collaborations with others, Melchert soon began working with him. Melchert saw enormous opportunities to integrate concepts such as Jackson Pollock’s “action painting” and the principles of abstract expressionism with ceramics as a means of pushing the medium toward more conceptual expression. Soon Melchert was not only doing his own experiments but also working in tandem with Bruce Nauman on projects and exhibitions in the Bay Area.13

14

15

Fig. 4 Installation view of Eccentric Abstraction, Fischbach Gallery, New York, 1966, showing works by (clockwise from top) Frank Lincoln Viner, Eva Hesse, Don Potts, and Keith Sonnier

surrounding art and art practices. Hesse’s compulsively wrapped, coiled, threaded, and layered work embodied a crafts approach to sculpture, while Nauman’s works referenced objects created out of an action or a performance.9 The work of Hesse and Nauman would come to represent two different strands of art practice involving craft and performance that would continue to evolve in the following decades.

Extensions into performance and performativity fed into the autonomy of craft and also left an indelible imprint on the potential of contemporary expression not only to create theater but also to tear down the “fourth wall,” which relegated the viewer to a passive role. The art that would emerge in the 1960s would, regardless of genre, push beyond the traditional boundaries and demand an active audience. For contemporary craft, the practice of incorporating the object or the process of creating the object into a sort of participatory theater or a theater of spectacle continued in the ensuing decades and into the new millennium. To date, the integration of the visual and the performing arts remains as pervasive and persistent as the utilitarian threads of the craft genre.

It has provided the expansive framework for Hand+Made: The Peformative Impulse in Art and Craft, which looks at craft and performativity from a variety of perspectives, including the porous walls of the theater of spectacle and participatory theater, the use of the body in performance to animate or in some cases alter the handmade object, and objects that are intended to “perform” by transforming over time through deterioration or regeneration.

In the early years of autonomous craft practices, artists such as Peter Voulkos and Sheila Hicks staged performative events in which they experimented with a variety of techniques in creating works of art. While the scale

Fig. 5 Sheila Hicks weaving on a backstrap loom, Oaxaca, Mexico, 1960

of their projects seemed to mandate more elaborate processes of creation, literally liberating each from the traditional potter’s wheel or loom, respectively, the concept of performance seemed as organic as it was intentional. The concept of participatory theater in this process really spoke to the extension of their practices beyond that of the solitary worker and into the realm of collective creation.10 As the scale of the work shifted, so did the corporeal relationship to its process. The focus was no longer on the hands but rather on the entire body and the necessity for other bodies. Art-making events frequently involved collaborators or participants as well as incidental audiences. Hicks’s works were often created in established workshops where the artist would not only experiment with off-loom apparatuses to create woven sculptural works but would also collaborate with local artisans to explore indigenous methods of traditional weaving (fig. 5), in effect creating new techniques for her massive art forms.11 These large-scale works produced from Hicks’s collaborative creative events would oftentimes function as environments for the viewer. The artist would later continue to work with collaborators, incorporating found objects and recycled materials into her works.

Voulkos too emphasized performative actions and processes in the creation of his works (fig. 1). He would rework preconstructed vessels, essentially deconstructing and reconstructing them until he achieved a satisfactory effect.

Voulkos’s large-scale works often involved students as well as fellow artists, who would collaborate with him in workshop-like settings, shifting between participatory theater and theater of spectacle.12 While the concept of participatory theater is more often used in a context in which process, rather than the finished object, is the goal, it is important to note that in earlier craft-based performative events, objects remained a steadfast and intentional goal. This would of course evolve over time, and one critical shift in this discourse with relation to participatory theater occurred in the 1970s with the work of a former student of Voulkos, James Melchert.

Melchert initially studied art history but turned to a studio practice in ceramics soon after meeting Voulkos. Captivated by Voulkos’s radical use of the body to create with clay off the wheel and his active engagement with audiences, as well as by his collaborations with others, Melchert soon began working with him. Melchert saw enormous opportunities to integrate concepts such as Jackson Pollock’s “action painting” and the principles of abstract expressionism with ceramics as a means of pushing the medium toward more conceptual expression. Soon Melchert was not only doing his own experiments but also working in tandem with Bruce Nauman on projects and exhibitions in the Bay Area.13

16

17

Fig. 6 Still from video documenting James Melchert’s performance Changes, Hetty Huisman’s studio, Amsterdam, 1972

Like those of Voulkos, Melchert’s early experiments focused on deconstructing both process and material. By the early 1970s he had begun working on a series of performances involving clay slip. In 1972, while traveling in Europe, he stopped in Amsterdam to visit fellow artist Hetty Huisman, who at that time staged exhibitions and happenings in her studio. It was at Huisman’s studio that he performed the seminal work Changes (see fig. 6, p. 84). Huisman invited several of her friends, many of whom were notable figures in the city’s cultural scene, to participate, including Lilly van Ginneken, Margaret and Claus Beeldman, Wil Bertheaux, Gita Jurians, Guido de Spa, Beno Premsela, and Carl Visser. In Changes, Melchert displaced the body as the mechanism for the creative process and situated it as the object. The slip as material becomes the active element. Taking turns, the participants dunked their heads in clay slip and sat on either one of two benches (one near ice and the other near a heat source, so that the drying process was either slowed or accelerated). While the slip dried, it encased each participant in a theater of the body, in which internal mechanisms such as breathing, the pumping of blood, digestion, and muscle movement, as well as sensory functions such as hearing, were amplified.14 In Changes, the body became the quintessential vessel, the slip a catalyst by which performance enabled engagement. Melchert is significant for this exhibition because he is one tributary through which we can trace the historical antecedents of performativity in craft into the contemporary terrain. One other such tributary is fiber artist Anne Wilson, who, like Melchert, studied in the San Francisco Bay Area. Wilson’s presence in the region came more than a decade after Melchert’s, but she too has imprinted her own conceptual framework on the genre.

For more than thirty years Wilson has tested the elasticity of fiber and fiber art. Influenced by the work of Eva Hesse, she experimented with material and technique to examine and critique cultural meaning and social boundaries as they relate to “woman’s work.” In doing so, Wilson has skillfully integrated conventional fine art materials with craft techniques to deconstruct disciplines

and focus attention on the politics of gender, race, and culture. Performance has also been a constant in the artist’s work and has ranged from the participatory to the solitary and the collaborative. In hairinquiry (1996–99), Wilson simply asked the general public to respond to two questions: “How does it feel to lose your hair?” and “What does it mean to cut your hair?” Receiving hundreds of responses by mail, e-mail, and fax, the artist posted the comments on a Web site. Part Mail Art and part new participatory theater, Wilson’s project sought to unravel and demystify the concept of hair loss across gender and racial background to uncover the universal truth of loss. While this project felt estranged from craft and process, it underlined a stronger conceptual framework for Wilson’s explorations. For a corollary work, A Chronicle of Days (1997–98), the artist undertook a solitary performance of endurance, embroidering human hair onto fabric to create a series of one hundred drawings over a period of one hundred days. The methodical and systematic action of stitching hairs onto fragments of white linen evokes the conceptual framework of On Kawara and other contemporary artists whose work documents a moment in time, while investigating systematic labor and action as performance.15 More recently, Wilson has embarked upon collaborative performances of labor and endurance. In Wind-Up: Walking the Warp (2008; p. 100), which she will adapt and restage for the present exhibition, the artist deconstructs the loom and the process of weaving to engage the entire body in the rhythmic act of weaving. Wilson’s work incorporates performance as both participatory theater and spectacle, raising questions about the nature of performance: what it is, who participates, who watches, and what is exchanged. These questions become exceedingly porous and permutable not only in Wilson’s work but also in that of other artists whose work is featured in this exhibition.

Contemporary artists working in craft have used, integrated, and employed performance not only as a catalyst for making objects but also as a means to engage the public in dialogue and exchange. Not unlike the artists of the Bauhaus, who almost one hundred years ago generated the contemporary parameters of craft as both utilitarian and autonomous objects and inserted the role of performance into the equation, contemporary artists are still employing performance as a means both to implode tradition and to generate new forms and practices. This is nowhere more obvious than in the work of the now-defunct B Team, which merged the process and technique of glassmaking into extraordinary spectacle events to essentially try to reinvent a five-thousand-year-old tradition. It is also evident in the work of Gabriel Craig, who sets up his jeweler’s bench in public spaces to discuss the diminishing role of metal crafting in contemporary society and the cultural significance of jewelry made by hand.And it is equally apparent in the use of handcrafted pieces that replicate and embellish parts of the body in the work of Lauren Kalman. It is evident in the questions of labor and the economy of exchange raised by Cat Chow’s Not for Sale (2002; p. 48) and Conrad Bakker’s Untitled Project: Book-of-the-Month Club (2010; p. 40) and in the issues of temporality explored by Sheila Pepe (p. 92), who invites audiences to deconstruct her large-scale yarn installations through their own performance of object making, and in the diminishing work of Yuka Otani (p. 88), whose stemware made from handblown or cast sugar literally dissolves with use and over time.

16

17

Fig. 6 Still from video documenting James Melchert’s performance Changes, Hetty Huisman’s studio, Amsterdam, 1972

Like those of Voulkos, Melchert’s early experiments focused on deconstructing both process and material. By the early 1970s he had begun working on a series of performances involving clay slip. In 1972, while traveling in Europe, he stopped in Amsterdam to visit fellow artist Hetty Huisman, who at that time staged exhibitions and happenings in her studio. It was at Huisman’s studio that he performed the seminal work Changes (see fig. 6, p. 84). Huisman invited several of her friends, many of whom were notable figures in the city’s cultural scene, to participate, including Lilly van Ginneken, Margaret and Claus Beeldman, Wil Bertheaux, Gita Jurians, Guido de Spa, Beno Premsela, and Carl Visser. In Changes, Melchert displaced the body as the mechanism for the creative process and situated it as the object. The slip as material becomes the active element. Taking turns, the participants dunked their heads in clay slip and sat on either one of two benches (one near ice and the other near a heat source, so that the drying process was either slowed or accelerated). While the slip dried, it encased each participant in a theater of the body, in which internal mechanisms such as breathing, the pumping of blood, digestion, and muscle movement, as well as sensory functions such as hearing, were amplified.14 In Changes, the body became the quintessential vessel, the slip a catalyst by which performance enabled engagement. Melchert is significant for this exhibition because he is one tributary through which we can trace the historical antecedents of performativity in craft into the contemporary terrain. One other such tributary is fiber artist Anne Wilson, who, like Melchert, studied in the San Francisco Bay Area. Wilson’s presence in the region came more than a decade after Melchert’s, but she too has imprinted her own conceptual framework on the genre.

For more than thirty years Wilson has tested the elasticity of fiber and fiber art. Influenced by the work of Eva Hesse, she experimented with material and technique to examine and critique cultural meaning and social boundaries as they relate to “woman’s work.” In doing so, Wilson has skillfully integrated conventional fine art materials with craft techniques to deconstruct disciplines

and focus attention on the politics of gender, race, and culture. Performance has also been a constant in the artist’s work and has ranged from the participatory to the solitary and the collaborative. In hairinquiry (1996–99), Wilson simply asked the general public to respond to two questions: “How does it feel to lose your hair?” and “What does it mean to cut your hair?” Receiving hundreds of responses by mail, e-mail, and fax, the artist posted the comments on a Web site. Part Mail Art and part new participatory theater, Wilson’s project sought to unravel and demystify the concept of hair loss across gender and racial background to uncover the universal truth of loss. While this project felt estranged from craft and process, it underlined a stronger conceptual framework for Wilson’s explorations. For a corollary work, A Chronicle of Days (1997–98), the artist undertook a solitary performance of endurance, embroidering human hair onto fabric to create a series of one hundred drawings over a period of one hundred days. The methodical and systematic action of stitching hairs onto fragments of white linen evokes the conceptual framework of On Kawara and other contemporary artists whose work documents a moment in time, while investigating systematic labor and action as performance.15 More recently, Wilson has embarked upon collaborative performances of labor and endurance. In Wind-Up: Walking the Warp (2008; p. 100), which she will adapt and restage for the present exhibition, the artist deconstructs the loom and the process of weaving to engage the entire body in the rhythmic act of weaving. Wilson’s work incorporates performance as both participatory theater and spectacle, raising questions about the nature of performance: what it is, who participates, who watches, and what is exchanged. These questions become exceedingly porous and permutable not only in Wilson’s work but also in that of other artists whose work is featured in this exhibition.

Contemporary artists working in craft have used, integrated, and employed performance not only as a catalyst for making objects but also as a means to engage the public in dialogue and exchange. Not unlike the artists of the Bauhaus, who almost one hundred years ago generated the contemporary parameters of craft as both utilitarian and autonomous objects and inserted the role of performance into the equation, contemporary artists are still employing performance as a means both to implode tradition and to generate new forms and practices. This is nowhere more obvious than in the work of the now-defunct B Team, which merged the process and technique of glassmaking into extraordinary spectacle events to essentially try to reinvent a five-thousand-year-old tradition. It is also evident in the work of Gabriel Craig, who sets up his jeweler’s bench in public spaces to discuss the diminishing role of metal crafting in contemporary society and the cultural significance of jewelry made by hand.And it is equally apparent in the use of handcrafted pieces that replicate and embellish parts of the body in the work of Lauren Kalman. It is evident in the questions of labor and the economy of exchange raised by Cat Chow’s Not for Sale (2002; p. 48) and Conrad Bakker’s Untitled Project: Book-of-the-Month Club (2010; p. 40) and in the issues of temporality explored by Sheila Pepe (p. 92), who invites audiences to deconstruct her large-scale yarn installations through their own performance of object making, and in the diminishing work of Yuka Otani (p. 88), whose stemware made from handblown or cast sugar literally dissolves with use and over time.

18

19

In a world in which contemporary art and craft converge, performance is no longer a stranger to the craft genre. It is as expansive as the experiences of those who bring their own talents to bear, as in Nick Cave’s integration of fiber art and dance. His history as a dancer with Alvin Ailey’s acclaimed dance company as well as his profound knowledge of fiber, textile traditions, ritual, and costuming have coalesced in the fantastical body of sculptural works simply titled Soundsuits. Cave’s Soundsuits are intensively and laboriously created and are literally animated through movement (fig. 7, p. 44). The spectacle of these objects in motion, as shown in the artist’s documented performances both in the studio and in public places, extends the conceptual framework of craft into the arenas of dance and sound.

Each of the artists featured in this exhibition has made an imprint on craft through the performative impulse. While this exhibition represents only a microcosm, it strongly reflects an array of practices throughout various media that have developed over the years and have continued to propel the genre forward. While the debate over the future of craft in the contemporary landscape continues, craft itself has continued to evolve. Simply put, it is no longer relegated to the binary of functionality and autonomy or, more archaically, to high or low art.And in the context of contemporary art, such delineations have ceased to be relevant as contemporary artists today fluidly move between disciplines and genres to create new traditions. This fluidity serves only to affirm craft as a living, breathing entity that has found a home among a DIY generation with an insatiable thirst for reinvention.

Artists working within the genre have never ceased to experiment with form and presentation or, more importantly, the corporeal, particularly in light of advances in technology and its role in commercial craft production. The imprint of the body within craft and the rhythmic impulse of the body in performance remain at the heart of craft’s persistence and its bold leap into the new millennium.

NOTES 1. Glenn Adamson, Thinking through Craft (Oxford: Berg, 2007), 4.

2. The imprint of the Bauhaus in the United States was pervasive in the postwar period. Former Bauhaus teachers and students migrated to the United States before World War II and taught at institutions such as Yale University, the New Bauhaus in Chicago, and Black Mountain College. Josef Albers began teaching at the newly founded Black Mountain College in 1933 and served as chair of the Department of Design at Yale from 1950 to 1958. He and his wife, Anni Albers, were seminal figures in the Bauhaus and strongly influenced a number of artists, including Sheila Hicks and Eva Hesse. Peter Voulkos initially taught at Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles and then went on to the University of California, Berkeley.

John Cage, Merce Cunningham, Willem de Kooning, and many others taught at Black Mountain, and their students included Robert Rauschenberg, Cy Twombly, Kenneth Noland, and Dorothea Rockburne. All these institutions, as well as others that are not named here, influenced the integration of studio practices with applied art forms.

3. In viewing the antecedents of this particular integration of craft or decorative objects and performance, I am looking to work that emerges from Cabaret Voltaire and Dada as well as the Bauhaus and the productions of Oskar Schlemmer. These references roughly span the period between the world wars (1916 to 1930s). Concepts of performance that emerged in the United States after World War II are framed in terms of “actions” and “happenings.”

4. See Bruce Metcalf, “Replacing the Myth of Modernism,” in NeoCraft: Modernity and the Crafts (Halifax, N.S.: Press of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, 2007), 8–25. Metcalf laments the “autonomy” of craft during the modernist period but lays a compelling framework to understand the context of craft making in the aftermath of World War II. 5. See John Coplans, introduction to Abstract Expressionist Ceramics (Irvine: University of California, 1967).

6. See Tawney’s Four-Armed Cloud (1979) and her collaboration with dancer Andy deGroat; Sheila Hicks’s communal weaving in Mexico; Harvey Littleton’s collaborations with low-melt glass and his work in establishing Pilchuck Glass School; and Voulkos’s “workshops” including audiences witnessing the development of his pieces.

7. According to Robert C. Morgan, Nauman “used materials as extensions of his own body.”

Essentially, “Nauman wanted his materials to encapsulate his corporeality and to document an impression of physical activity” (The End of the Art World [New York: Allworth Press and School of the Visual Arts, 1998], 79, 85).

8. Ibid., 80.

9. See the reference to Douglas Crimp’s discussion of Eva Hesse’s work in Elissa Auther, String, Felt, Thread: The Hierarchy of Art and Craft in American Art (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2010), 83.

10. I am using the definition of participatory theater as outlined in Rudolf Frieling, ed., The Art of Participation: 1950 to Now (San Francisco: San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; New York: Thames & Hudson, 2008). I have slightly deviated from the definitions outlined, singling out some aspects of artists’ projects created for this exhibition as spectacle, though they also engage audiences.

11. See Arthur C. Danto, Joan Simon, and Nina Stritzler-Levine, Sheila Hicks: Weaving as Metaphor (New Haven: Yale University Press in association with Bard Graduate Center for Studies in the Decorative Arts, Design, and Culture, 2006). Hicks first established a workshop in Mexico in the mid-1960s. Her workshops would later expand to Paris, Morocco, India, Chile, France, Germany, Japan, Sweden, and the United States.

12. See oral history interview with James Melchert, conducted by Renny Pritikin, September 18 and October 19, 2002, Nanette L. Laitman Documentation Project for Craft and Decorative Arts in America, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, http://www.aaa.si.edu/ collections/oralhistories/transcripts/Melche02.htm. Melchert, a former student of Voulkos, discusses his mentor’s work as performance.

Fig. 7 Nick Cave Untitled (Soundsuit), 2009 Fabric, beads, mixed media 106 x 36 x 28 inches

13. These exhibitions included The Slant Step Show in 1966 at the Berkeley Gallery in San Francisco and Repair Show at the Oakland Museum of Art in 1968. See Melchert’s interview with Renny Pritikin (ibid.).

14. Judith Schwartz, Confrontational Ceramics: The Artist as Social Critic (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008), 122.

15. See Valerie Cassel Oliver, Perspectives 140: Anne Wilson (Houston: Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, 2004).

18

19

In a world in which contemporary art and craft converge, performance is no longer a stranger to the craft genre. It is as expansive as the experiences of those who bring their own talents to bear, as in Nick Cave’s integration of fiber art and dance. His history as a dancer with Alvin Ailey’s acclaimed dance company as well as his profound knowledge of fiber, textile traditions, ritual, and costuming have coalesced in the fantastical body of sculptural works simply titled Soundsuits. Cave’s Soundsuits are intensively and laboriously created and are literally animated through movement (fig. 7, p. 44). The spectacle of these objects in motion, as shown in the artist’s documented performances both in the studio and in public places, extends the conceptual framework of craft into the arenas of dance and sound.

Each of the artists featured in this exhibition has made an imprint on craft through the performative impulse. While this exhibition represents only a microcosm, it strongly reflects an array of practices throughout various media that have developed over the years and have continued to propel the genre forward. While the debate over the future of craft in the contemporary landscape continues, craft itself has continued to evolve. Simply put, it is no longer relegated to the binary of functionality and autonomy or, more archaically, to high or low art.And in the context of contemporary art, such delineations have ceased to be relevant as contemporary artists today fluidly move between disciplines and genres to create new traditions. This fluidity serves only to affirm craft as a living, breathing entity that has found a home among a DIY generation with an insatiable thirst for reinvention.

Artists working within the genre have never ceased to experiment with form and presentation or, more importantly, the corporeal, particularly in light of advances in technology and its role in commercial craft production. The imprint of the body within craft and the rhythmic impulse of the body in performance remain at the heart of craft’s persistence and its bold leap into the new millennium.

NOTES 1. Glenn Adamson, Thinking through Craft (Oxford: Berg, 2007), 4.

2. The imprint of the Bauhaus in the United States was pervasive in the postwar period. Former Bauhaus teachers and students migrated to the United States before World War II and taught at institutions such as Yale University, the New Bauhaus in Chicago, and Black Mountain College. Josef Albers began teaching at the newly founded Black Mountain College in 1933 and served as chair of the Department of Design at Yale from 1950 to 1958. He and his wife, Anni Albers, were seminal figures in the Bauhaus and strongly influenced a number of artists, including Sheila Hicks and Eva Hesse. Peter Voulkos initially taught at Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles and then went on to the University of California, Berkeley.

John Cage, Merce Cunningham, Willem de Kooning, and many others taught at Black Mountain, and their students included Robert Rauschenberg, Cy Twombly, Kenneth Noland, and Dorothea Rockburne. All these institutions, as well as others that are not named here, influenced the integration of studio practices with applied art forms.

3. In viewing the antecedents of this particular integration of craft or decorative objects and performance, I am looking to work that emerges from Cabaret Voltaire and Dada as well as the Bauhaus and the productions of Oskar Schlemmer. These references roughly span the period between the world wars (1916 to 1930s). Concepts of performance that emerged in the United States after World War II are framed in terms of “actions” and “happenings.”

4. See Bruce Metcalf, “Replacing the Myth of Modernism,” in NeoCraft: Modernity and the Crafts (Halifax, N.S.: Press of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, 2007), 8–25. Metcalf laments the “autonomy” of craft during the modernist period but lays a compelling framework to understand the context of craft making in the aftermath of World War II. 5. See John Coplans, introduction to Abstract Expressionist Ceramics (Irvine: University of California, 1967).

6. See Tawney’s Four-Armed Cloud (1979) and her collaboration with dancer Andy deGroat; Sheila Hicks’s communal weaving in Mexico; Harvey Littleton’s collaborations with low-melt glass and his work in establishing Pilchuck Glass School; and Voulkos’s “workshops” including audiences witnessing the development of his pieces.

7. According to Robert C. Morgan, Nauman “used materials as extensions of his own body.”

Essentially, “Nauman wanted his materials to encapsulate his corporeality and to document an impression of physical activity” (The End of the Art World [New York: Allworth Press and School of the Visual Arts, 1998], 79, 85).

8. Ibid., 80.

9. See the reference to Douglas Crimp’s discussion of Eva Hesse’s work in Elissa Auther, String, Felt, Thread: The Hierarchy of Art and Craft in American Art (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2010), 83.

10. I am using the definition of participatory theater as outlined in Rudolf Frieling, ed., The Art of Participation: 1950 to Now (San Francisco: San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; New York: Thames & Hudson, 2008). I have slightly deviated from the definitions outlined, singling out some aspects of artists’ projects created for this exhibition as spectacle, though they also engage audiences.

11. See Arthur C. Danto, Joan Simon, and Nina Stritzler-Levine, Sheila Hicks: Weaving as Metaphor (New Haven: Yale University Press in association with Bard Graduate Center for Studies in the Decorative Arts, Design, and Culture, 2006). Hicks first established a workshop in Mexico in the mid-1960s. Her workshops would later expand to Paris, Morocco, India, Chile, France, Germany, Japan, Sweden, and the United States.

12. See oral history interview with James Melchert, conducted by Renny Pritikin, September 18 and October 19, 2002, Nanette L. Laitman Documentation Project for Craft and Decorative Arts in America, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, http://www.aaa.si.edu/ collections/oralhistories/transcripts/Melche02.htm. Melchert, a former student of Voulkos, discusses his mentor’s work as performance.

Fig. 7 Nick Cave Untitled (Soundsuit), 2009 Fabric, beads, mixed media 106 x 36 x 28 inches

13. These exhibitions included The Slant Step Show in 1966 at the Berkeley Gallery in San Francisco and Repair Show at the Oakland Museum of Art in 1968. See Melchert’s interview with Renny Pritikin (ibid.).

14. Judith Schwartz, Confrontational Ceramics: The Artist as Social Critic (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008), 122.

15. See Valerie Cassel Oliver, Perspectives 140: Anne Wilson (Houston: Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, 2004).

21

Perpetual Motion GLENN ADAMSON

Man, thou canst do strange things, but thou turnest them to little account!

Fig. 8 Theatrical Reflection, or a Peep at the Looking Glass Curtain at the Royal Coburg Theatre, 1822 Hand-colored etching Published by G. Humphrey The print shows Ramo Samee performing in front of a mirrored curtain reflecting the audience

That was the response of the great nineteenth-century British essayist William Hazlitt when he was faced with a performance of extraordinary skill. He had just encountered Ramo Samee—the “chief of the Indian jugglers,” as Hazlitt described him, “in his white dress and tightened turban” (fig. 8). Samee had tossed four brass balls in the air and then set them in motion in a mesmerizing pattern, “like the planets in their spheres . . . like ribbons or like serpents.” Dazzled as he was by the juggler’s amazing facility, Hazlitt was not quite sure how to react. Was this the apex of art he had witnessed, human ingenuity at its highest level? He considered this possibility but decided against it. For, as he explained in his 1821 essay “The Indian Jugglers,” Samee’s “mechanical dexterity” was not art at all. It was something else, something . . . lower. Yes, the performer had given his audience a wondrous spectacle, and there was doubtless an aesthetic pleasure in seeing his skill on display. Yet the more Hazlitt thought about the juggler’s ease and grace, the less impressed he became: “The limbs require little more than to be put in motion for them to follow a regular track with ease and certainty; so that mere intention of the will acts mathematically, like touching the spring of a machine.”1 Nearly two hundred years later, the question that Hazlitt asked himself is still relevant. In fact, it has become only more pressing. As hand skills become less and less common, they are ever more often set out for appreciation in their own right, like endangered species in a zoo. On television and the Internet, in museum galleries, at fairs and conferences, the craft demonstration has never been more popular. There is no doubt that it is inherently fascinating to see an adept at work, and for these purposes, the artisan is not much different from a juggler, a musician, or an athlete. It is captivating to watch a blower making delicate transparent forms from molten lumps of glass, or a potter throwing thin-walled vessels from wet clay, or a spinner twisting recalcitrant fibers into

21

Perpetual Motion GLENN ADAMSON

Man, thou canst do strange things, but thou turnest them to little account!

Fig. 8 Theatrical Reflection, or a Peep at the Looking Glass Curtain at the Royal Coburg Theatre, 1822 Hand-colored etching Published by G. Humphrey The print shows Ramo Samee performing in front of a mirrored curtain reflecting the audience

That was the response of the great nineteenth-century British essayist William Hazlitt when he was faced with a performance of extraordinary skill. He had just encountered Ramo Samee—the “chief of the Indian jugglers,” as Hazlitt described him, “in his white dress and tightened turban” (fig. 8). Samee had tossed four brass balls in the air and then set them in motion in a mesmerizing pattern, “like the planets in their spheres . . . like ribbons or like serpents.” Dazzled as he was by the juggler’s amazing facility, Hazlitt was not quite sure how to react. Was this the apex of art he had witnessed, human ingenuity at its highest level? He considered this possibility but decided against it. For, as he explained in his 1821 essay “The Indian Jugglers,” Samee’s “mechanical dexterity” was not art at all. It was something else, something . . . lower. Yes, the performer had given his audience a wondrous spectacle, and there was doubtless an aesthetic pleasure in seeing his skill on display. Yet the more Hazlitt thought about the juggler’s ease and grace, the less impressed he became: “The limbs require little more than to be put in motion for them to follow a regular track with ease and certainty; so that mere intention of the will acts mathematically, like touching the spring of a machine.”1 Nearly two hundred years later, the question that Hazlitt asked himself is still relevant. In fact, it has become only more pressing. As hand skills become less and less common, they are ever more often set out for appreciation in their own right, like endangered species in a zoo. On television and the Internet, in museum galleries, at fairs and conferences, the craft demonstration has never been more popular. There is no doubt that it is inherently fascinating to see an adept at work, and for these purposes, the artisan is not much different from a juggler, a musician, or an athlete. It is captivating to watch a blower making delicate transparent forms from molten lumps of glass, or a potter throwing thin-walled vessels from wet clay, or a spinner twisting recalcitrant fibers into

22

23

Fig. 9 Documentation of James Melchert’s performance Changes, 1972 Black-and-white photograph by Mieke H. Hille 10 x 8 inches

taut yarn. Yet many would side with Hazlitt in thinking that such feats are something less than art. With sufficient practice, as he observed, skill becomes automatic. It is often said that if you think too hard about what you are doing, you’ll spoil the work. So as Hazlitt observed, counterintuitively, the hands of the skilled practitioner operate almost like the moving parts of a machine.

The craftsman produces astounding effects by routine, without the need for conscious thought.

This is not to say, of course, that craft is disconnected from chains of intention, calculation, and conceptualization. Quite the contrary: no potter would be worth her salt if she could not design her wares, contrive a business plan to sell them, and perhaps even meditate on their social value.Yet these ancillary intellectual activities go out the window when she sits down to throw. At least that is what Hazlitt thought, and many have sided with him. There is a long tradition of seeing in craft a meditative state of “no-mind,” as if the artisan were a hollow vessel into which ancient skills flowed, only to be poured out anew. Walter Benjamin envisioned the craftsman this way and placed him at the center of oral tradition on that basis. Storytelling is “an artisan form of communication,” as he put it; a weaver silently working in the workshop, plying a shuttle back and forth, seemed to Benjamin a perfect receptacle for ancient narratives: “The more self-forgetful the listener is, the more deeply is what he listens to impressed upon his memory. When the rhythm of work has seized him, he listens to the tales in such a way that the gift of retelling them comes to him all by itself. This, then, is the nature of the web in which the gift of storytelling is cradled.”2 Craft in performance reassures us, then. It seems certain, rich, deep— historically embedded and intrinsically valuable. There’s a problem with this picture though: what about the objects that result? In this respect, craft is very different from other types of skillful performance. As the handmade object enters into circuits of reception, exchange, and critical judgment, it becomes an unmanageable thing. Its status (as artwork, design, luxury good, souvenir, folk item, magical talisman, prototype, readymade, or replica) becomes a subjective matter. Its value is no longer self-evident but is determined by the corrupting, or at least confusing, forces of the marketplace. This difficulty has been with us since the days of William Morris, and it shows no sign of going away anytime soon.3 The characteristic twentieth-century solution was to position the craft object as an artwork, in which case it could be claimed to have critical potential in an age of mass production. But this is much easier said than done; many (perhaps most) modern craft objects do not transcend the skill that went into their making in this way. If anything, they play a game of catch-up with their facture, so that we are left with the feeling that the object is only the retro-

spective excuse for its own making. Craft remains chained to the production of commodities, like Prometheus to his rock.

This brings us to the works in the current exhibition, Hand+Made: The Performative Impulse in Contemporary Art and Craft. Though there are many strategies on offer here, the common thread is a reimagination of the relation between performance and object.At the heart of the project is James Melchert’s piece Changes (fig. 9, p. 84), first performed in the Netherlands in 1972, in which prominent members of the Dutch art world, along with the artist himself, suffered having to immerse their heads in slip (liquid clay) in order to experience its drying up-close and personal. In this case both the traditional skills of the potter and the handmade object are pointedly absent. What remains is a direct encounter with materiality and time.

Melchert’s po-faced experiment had an austerity typical of early Conceptual Art; as the rest of the exhibition attests, contemporary approaches combining craft with performance are much more expressive. They share with his work, though, the intention to sever the direct relation between craft performance and crafted object. While there are handmade things in the show, they are invariably reactivated through some further action: a theatrical production, a costume, or a piece of music. In some cases the work consists of objects in a state of continuous assembly or disassembly. Others come to us secondhand via video documentation—a framing that reduces the charismatic immediacy of live craft skill. Still elsewhere in the exhibition, interactive performances are at work, highlighting the way the body is transformed through encounter with objects (such as jewelry) and, conversely, the response of objects to our touch.

In all these cases, rather than the direct causality of conventional craft performance, in which activity leads to object, we have a loop in which actions and effects produce one another continually. This model of craft, most concisely embodied in the exhibition by Sabrina Gschwandtner’s self-referential installation Crochet Film (2004; p. 72), might be called “cybernetic,” after the influential theories of Norbert Wiener.4 His key insight was the notion of “feedback”—that is, a system in which the output of a process reenters as an input.

Though this idea has proved most influential in the study of computing, feedback can be seen in many different situations, from a target shooter who corrects his aim, based on his previous shot, to dividends that are strategically reinvested into a stock portfolio.

Cybernetic patterns are rife in craftwork, but they usually go almost unnoticed. When a silversmith hammers a sheet into a hollow form, for example, every strike is a minute adjustment from the previous one. The same is true for any artisan actively engaged with tools and materials. To be skilled is to adjust constantly (and as mentioned above, more or less automatically) to what has just been done. The exhibition Hand+Made excavates and dramatizes this hidden content.Anne Wilson turns the process of setting up a loom’s warp threads into a meditative dance, for example, directing our attention not just to the beauty of this ancient technique but also to its internal shapes, which repeat and develop almost like a theme in a musical composition.

Cybernetic loops operate on vastly different scales. One can find similarly recursive patterns at an artisan’s workbench, in the routines of a computer’s CPU, or at the macroeconomic scale of global trade. The cybernetic is inherently

22

23

Fig. 9 Documentation of James Melchert’s performance Changes, 1972 Black-and-white photograph by Mieke H. Hille 10 x 8 inches

taut yarn. Yet many would side with Hazlitt in thinking that such feats are something less than art. With sufficient practice, as he observed, skill becomes automatic. It is often said that if you think too hard about what you are doing, you’ll spoil the work. So as Hazlitt observed, counterintuitively, the hands of the skilled practitioner operate almost like the moving parts of a machine.

The craftsman produces astounding effects by routine, without the need for conscious thought.

This is not to say, of course, that craft is disconnected from chains of intention, calculation, and conceptualization. Quite the contrary: no potter would be worth her salt if she could not design her wares, contrive a business plan to sell them, and perhaps even meditate on their social value.Yet these ancillary intellectual activities go out the window when she sits down to throw. At least that is what Hazlitt thought, and many have sided with him. There is a long tradition of seeing in craft a meditative state of “no-mind,” as if the artisan were a hollow vessel into which ancient skills flowed, only to be poured out anew. Walter Benjamin envisioned the craftsman this way and placed him at the center of oral tradition on that basis. Storytelling is “an artisan form of communication,” as he put it; a weaver silently working in the workshop, plying a shuttle back and forth, seemed to Benjamin a perfect receptacle for ancient narratives: “The more self-forgetful the listener is, the more deeply is what he listens to impressed upon his memory. When the rhythm of work has seized him, he listens to the tales in such a way that the gift of retelling them comes to him all by itself. This, then, is the nature of the web in which the gift of storytelling is cradled.”2 Craft in performance reassures us, then. It seems certain, rich, deep— historically embedded and intrinsically valuable. There’s a problem with this picture though: what about the objects that result? In this respect, craft is very different from other types of skillful performance. As the handmade object enters into circuits of reception, exchange, and critical judgment, it becomes an unmanageable thing. Its status (as artwork, design, luxury good, souvenir, folk item, magical talisman, prototype, readymade, or replica) becomes a subjective matter. Its value is no longer self-evident but is determined by the corrupting, or at least confusing, forces of the marketplace. This difficulty has been with us since the days of William Morris, and it shows no sign of going away anytime soon.3 The characteristic twentieth-century solution was to position the craft object as an artwork, in which case it could be claimed to have critical potential in an age of mass production. But this is much easier said than done; many (perhaps most) modern craft objects do not transcend the skill that went into their making in this way. If anything, they play a game of catch-up with their facture, so that we are left with the feeling that the object is only the retro-

spective excuse for its own making. Craft remains chained to the production of commodities, like Prometheus to his rock.

This brings us to the works in the current exhibition, Hand+Made: The Performative Impulse in Contemporary Art and Craft. Though there are many strategies on offer here, the common thread is a reimagination of the relation between performance and object.At the heart of the project is James Melchert’s piece Changes (fig. 9, p. 84), first performed in the Netherlands in 1972, in which prominent members of the Dutch art world, along with the artist himself, suffered having to immerse their heads in slip (liquid clay) in order to experience its drying up-close and personal. In this case both the traditional skills of the potter and the handmade object are pointedly absent. What remains is a direct encounter with materiality and time.

Melchert’s po-faced experiment had an austerity typical of early Conceptual Art; as the rest of the exhibition attests, contemporary approaches combining craft with performance are much more expressive. They share with his work, though, the intention to sever the direct relation between craft performance and crafted object. While there are handmade things in the show, they are invariably reactivated through some further action: a theatrical production, a costume, or a piece of music. In some cases the work consists of objects in a state of continuous assembly or disassembly. Others come to us secondhand via video documentation—a framing that reduces the charismatic immediacy of live craft skill. Still elsewhere in the exhibition, interactive performances are at work, highlighting the way the body is transformed through encounter with objects (such as jewelry) and, conversely, the response of objects to our touch.

In all these cases, rather than the direct causality of conventional craft performance, in which activity leads to object, we have a loop in which actions and effects produce one another continually. This model of craft, most concisely embodied in the exhibition by Sabrina Gschwandtner’s self-referential installation Crochet Film (2004; p. 72), might be called “cybernetic,” after the influential theories of Norbert Wiener.4 His key insight was the notion of “feedback”—that is, a system in which the output of a process reenters as an input.

Though this idea has proved most influential in the study of computing, feedback can be seen in many different situations, from a target shooter who corrects his aim, based on his previous shot, to dividends that are strategically reinvested into a stock portfolio.

Cybernetic patterns are rife in craftwork, but they usually go almost unnoticed. When a silversmith hammers a sheet into a hollow form, for example, every strike is a minute adjustment from the previous one. The same is true for any artisan actively engaged with tools and materials. To be skilled is to adjust constantly (and as mentioned above, more or less automatically) to what has just been done. The exhibition Hand+Made excavates and dramatizes this hidden content.Anne Wilson turns the process of setting up a loom’s warp threads into a meditative dance, for example, directing our attention not just to the beauty of this ancient technique but also to its internal shapes, which repeat and develop almost like a theme in a musical composition.

Cybernetic loops operate on vastly different scales. One can find similarly recursive patterns at an artisan’s workbench, in the routines of a computer’s CPU, or at the macroeconomic scale of global trade. The cybernetic is inherently

24

25

expansive, and this lends the complex patterns of craft performance in Hand+Made a relevance beyond the gallery. Constantly in this exhibition, our attention is being directed elsewhere: backward, to an activity that has already been completed; forward, to a resolution that has yet to occur; and above all sideways, across multiple media and to other spaces. Benjamin’s imaginary storyteller would have a hard time making himself heard here; distraction is the order of the day.

So where is all this perpetual motion taking us? Away from the object, certainly, in the direction in which Melchert pointed so many years ago. The self-described “punk glass artists” who called themselves B Team (fig. 10; p. 36) perhaps put this best when they were asked to explain the motivations behind their theatrical hot glass performances: “We wanted to explore the beauty of the raw material, and we thought it was most impressive when you’re making the glass at the furnace. Once it’s done, it almost seemed dead in comparison.” 5 One has to factor in the context here—contemporary glass is notorious for its empty-headed displays of skill—but even so, B Team’s sentiment seems to register a general tenor of the times. When one does encounter craft in this digital age, it is usually the process and not the product that counts.

This is, indeed, the constant refrain of the do-it-yourself (DIY) movement, which has become such a conspicuous feature of the American craft landscape in recent years. Faythe Levine, director of the documentary Handmade Nation, has noted the difficulty that results from this emphasis on process. On the one hand, she is willing to argue, “making something with your hands is empowering, powerful and in my opinion political” (see fig. 11).6 On the other, she recognizes that critical judgment is necessary. When many thousands are heeding the call to “get their knit on,” and every city has its own renegade craft fair, choices have to be made.7 This is “the tricky part,” as Levine concedes: “I am a very selective curator and collector. I constantly tell people that their work isn’t ‘good enough’ or the ‘right fit’ for a project I am working on.”8 It is the old, awkward problem of modern craft all over again: no matter how badly one

Fig. 11 KnittaPlease Mexico City Bus, 2008 Knitted and crocheted yarn, glue, city bus Courtesy the artists and Absolut Vodka

wants to position the object simply as the residue of the experience, it takes on a troublesome life of its own.

This conundrum is neatly sidestepped by the artists in Hand+Made, for whom the process is the product. One might object that this is only a provisional solution—that these works could not survive outside the safe confines of an art gallery, and in that sense, they offer no real solution to the problem of the handmade. But this would be to miss a key point: the problem of the handmade doesn’t need solving. Craft skill is useful not in its own right, even if it renders us captive in open-mouthed amazement; it is at its best when it gets people talking and puts things on the move.

So when the spectacle of making casts its ancient spell on us, we should remember Ramo Samee. From the juggler’s perspective, the performance that William Hazlitt saw was presumably just another routine, a day in the life of a professional. Samee was (quite literally) going through the motions. Most of us these days are Hazlitts, and of course we like to see all the balls in the air at once. But we should remember that the real, lasting value of a performance is what it inspires besides awe. Without the juggler’s skill, after all, the essayist’s speculations would never have been set in flight.

NOTES 1. William Hazlitt, “The Indian Jugglers,” in Table-Talk: Essays in Men and Manners, vol. 1 (1821–22; London: Henry Frowde, 1905), 103–8.

2. Walter Benjamin, “The Storyteller: Reflections on the Works of Nikolai Leskov” (1936), sections 8–9; reprinted in Illuminations, trans. Harry Zohn, ed. Hannah Arendt (New York: Schocken, 1968), 91. See also Esther Leslie, “Walter Benjamin: Traces of Craft,” Journal of Design History 11, no. 1 (1998): 5–13.

3. For a recent discussion of this problem in the Arts and Crafts movement, see Tom Crook, “Craft and the Dialogics of Modernity: The Arts and Crafts Movement in Late-Victorian and Edwardian England,” Journal of Modern Craft 2 (February 2009): 17–32.

4. The term was first explored in Norbert Wiener, Cybernetics: Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine (Boston: Technology Press, 1948).

5. Quoted in Andrew Page, “Burning Down the House,” Glass Quarterly, no. 117 (Winter 2009–10), http://www.urbanglass.org/?q=node/233&pid=144.

6. Faythe Levine, “What’s the Role of Skill in the DIY Community?” blog entry, December 14, 2009, journalofmoderncraft.com.

7. The phrase is from Debbie Stoller, Stitch ’n’ Bitch: The Knitter’s Handbook (New York: Workman, 2004). The original Renegade Craft Fair was started in Chicago in 2003; it now has franchises in three other cities and many other spin-offs and imitators. See www.renegadecraft.com.

Fig. 10 Evan Snyderman of B Team performing Glob Fling, part of Spontaneous Combustion II, Fringe Festival, Philadelphia, 1997

8. Levine, “What’s the Role?” See also the thoughtful discussion in Sabrina Gschwandtner, “Let ‘Em Eat Cake,” American Craft 68 (August–September 2008), www.americancraftmag.org/article.php?id=5074. According to Gschwandtner, “Though indie craft is often considered by those outside it to be a countercultural response to mass production and hyperconsumerism, many long-standing DIYers feel that craft fairs are now, for better or worse, a hybrid mix of straightforward commercialism and viable counterculture practice.”

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expansive, and this lends the complex patterns of craft performance in Hand+Made a relevance beyond the gallery. Constantly in this exhibition, our attention is being directed elsewhere: backward, to an activity that has already been completed; forward, to a resolution that has yet to occur; and above all sideways, across multiple media and to other spaces. Benjamin’s imaginary storyteller would have a hard time making himself heard here; distraction is the order of the day.

So where is all this perpetual motion taking us? Away from the object, certainly, in the direction in which Melchert pointed so many years ago. The self-described “punk glass artists” who called themselves B Team (fig. 10; p. 36) perhaps put this best when they were asked to explain the motivations behind their theatrical hot glass performances: “We wanted to explore the beauty of the raw material, and we thought it was most impressive when you’re making the glass at the furnace. Once it’s done, it almost seemed dead in comparison.” 5 One has to factor in the context here—contemporary glass is notorious for its empty-headed displays of skill—but even so, B Team’s sentiment seems to register a general tenor of the times. When one does encounter craft in this digital age, it is usually the process and not the product that counts.

This is, indeed, the constant refrain of the do-it-yourself (DIY) movement, which has become such a conspicuous feature of the American craft landscape in recent years. Faythe Levine, director of the documentary Handmade Nation, has noted the difficulty that results from this emphasis on process. On the one hand, she is willing to argue, “making something with your hands is empowering, powerful and in my opinion political” (see fig. 11).6 On the other, she recognizes that critical judgment is necessary. When many thousands are heeding the call to “get their knit on,” and every city has its own renegade craft fair, choices have to be made.7 This is “the tricky part,” as Levine concedes: “I am a very selective curator and collector. I constantly tell people that their work isn’t ‘good enough’ or the ‘right fit’ for a project I am working on.”8 It is the old, awkward problem of modern craft all over again: no matter how badly one

Fig. 11 KnittaPlease Mexico City Bus, 2008 Knitted and crocheted yarn, glue, city bus Courtesy the artists and Absolut Vodka

wants to position the object simply as the residue of the experience, it takes on a troublesome life of its own.

This conundrum is neatly sidestepped by the artists in Hand+Made, for whom the process is the product. One might object that this is only a provisional solution—that these works could not survive outside the safe confines of an art gallery, and in that sense, they offer no real solution to the problem of the handmade. But this would be to miss a key point: the problem of the handmade doesn’t need solving. Craft skill is useful not in its own right, even if it renders us captive in open-mouthed amazement; it is at its best when it gets people talking and puts things on the move.

So when the spectacle of making casts its ancient spell on us, we should remember Ramo Samee. From the juggler’s perspective, the performance that William Hazlitt saw was presumably just another routine, a day in the life of a professional. Samee was (quite literally) going through the motions. Most of us these days are Hazlitts, and of course we like to see all the balls in the air at once. But we should remember that the real, lasting value of a performance is what it inspires besides awe. Without the juggler’s skill, after all, the essayist’s speculations would never have been set in flight.

NOTES 1. William Hazlitt, “The Indian Jugglers,” in Table-Talk: Essays in Men and Manners, vol. 1 (1821–22; London: Henry Frowde, 1905), 103–8.

2. Walter Benjamin, “The Storyteller: Reflections on the Works of Nikolai Leskov” (1936), sections 8–9; reprinted in Illuminations, trans. Harry Zohn, ed. Hannah Arendt (New York: Schocken, 1968), 91. See also Esther Leslie, “Walter Benjamin: Traces of Craft,” Journal of Design History 11, no. 1 (1998): 5–13.

3. For a recent discussion of this problem in the Arts and Crafts movement, see Tom Crook, “Craft and the Dialogics of Modernity: The Arts and Crafts Movement in Late-Victorian and Edwardian England,” Journal of Modern Craft 2 (February 2009): 17–32.

4. The term was first explored in Norbert Wiener, Cybernetics: Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine (Boston: Technology Press, 1948).

5. Quoted in Andrew Page, “Burning Down the House,” Glass Quarterly, no. 117 (Winter 2009–10), http://www.urbanglass.org/?q=node/233&pid=144.

6. Faythe Levine, “What’s the Role of Skill in the DIY Community?” blog entry, December 14, 2009, journalofmoderncraft.com.

7. The phrase is from Debbie Stoller, Stitch ’n’ Bitch: The Knitter’s Handbook (New York: Workman, 2004). The original Renegade Craft Fair was started in Chicago in 2003; it now has franchises in three other cities and many other spin-offs and imitators. See www.renegadecraft.com.

Fig. 10 Evan Snyderman of B Team performing Glob Fling, part of Spontaneous Combustion II, Fringe Festival, Philadelphia, 1997

8. Levine, “What’s the Role?” See also the thoughtful discussion in Sabrina Gschwandtner, “Let ‘Em Eat Cake,” American Craft 68 (August–September 2008), www.americancraftmag.org/article.php?id=5074. According to Gschwandtner, “Though indie craft is often considered by those outside it to be a countercultural response to mass production and hyperconsumerism, many long-standing DIYers feel that craft fairs are now, for better or worse, a hybrid mix of straightforward commercialism and viable counterculture practice.”

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Craft Performs NAMITA GUPTA WIGGERS

The most valuable feature of the concept of culture is the concept of difference, a contrastive rather than a substantive property of certain things.

Although the term difference has now taken on a vast set of associations (principally because of the special use of the term by Jacques Derrida and his followers), its main virtue is that it is a useful heuristic that can highlight points of similarity and contrast between all sorts of categories: classes, genders, roles, groups, and nations. When we therefore point to a practice, a distinction, a conception, an object, or an ideology as having a cultural dimension (notice the adjectival use), we stress the idea of situated difference, that is, difference in relation to something local, embodied, and significant. This point can be summarized in the following form: culture is not usefully regarded as a substance but is better regarded as a dimension of phenomena, a dimension that attends to situated and embodied difference.

Stressing the dimensionality of culture rather than its substantiality permits our thinking of culture less as a property of individuals and groups and more as a heuristic device that we can use to talk about difference.

Arjun Appadurai1

Fig. 12 Performance of Anne Wilson’s Wind-Up: Walking the Warp at Rhona Hoffman Gallery, Chicago, 2008

To make something “by hand” is culturally relevant once again. From scrapbooking to knitting, sewing to DIY furniture, food preparation and gardening to home decorating, from the popularity of garden and design shows on TV to the tens of thousands who flock to the Maker Faire and Burning Man each year, it is difficult to argue that expressing creativity through one’s hands is dying out. Alongside this proliferation of making, the sheer number of books, articles, journals, films, conferences, dialogues, Web sites, workshops, and blogs that regularly emerge addressing historical and modern, contemporary and global craft leaves one breathless from efforts to keep pace. Despite this rich and diverse abundance, with many hands and voices contributing to the dimensionality of craft, our understanding of how to discuss craft as a terrain of situated difference is nascent at best. By focusing on spaces, places, and ways in which visual practitioners perform craft today, we can enhance our understanding of the easily overlooked craftscape.

27

Craft Performs NAMITA GUPTA WIGGERS

The most valuable feature of the concept of culture is the concept of difference, a contrastive rather than a substantive property of certain things.

Although the term difference has now taken on a vast set of associations (principally because of the special use of the term by Jacques Derrida and his followers), its main virtue is that it is a useful heuristic that can highlight points of similarity and contrast between all sorts of categories: classes, genders, roles, groups, and nations. When we therefore point to a practice, a distinction, a conception, an object, or an ideology as having a cultural dimension (notice the adjectival use), we stress the idea of situated difference, that is, difference in relation to something local, embodied, and significant. This point can be summarized in the following form: culture is not usefully regarded as a substance but is better regarded as a dimension of phenomena, a dimension that attends to situated and embodied difference.

Stressing the dimensionality of culture rather than its substantiality permits our thinking of culture less as a property of individuals and groups and more as a heuristic device that we can use to talk about difference.

Arjun Appadurai1

Fig. 12 Performance of Anne Wilson’s Wind-Up: Walking the Warp at Rhona Hoffman Gallery, Chicago, 2008

To make something “by hand” is culturally relevant once again. From scrapbooking to knitting, sewing to DIY furniture, food preparation and gardening to home decorating, from the popularity of garden and design shows on TV to the tens of thousands who flock to the Maker Faire and Burning Man each year, it is difficult to argue that expressing creativity through one’s hands is dying out. Alongside this proliferation of making, the sheer number of books, articles, journals, films, conferences, dialogues, Web sites, workshops, and blogs that regularly emerge addressing historical and modern, contemporary and global craft leaves one breathless from efforts to keep pace. Despite this rich and diverse abundance, with many hands and voices contributing to the dimensionality of craft, our understanding of how to discuss craft as a terrain of situated difference is nascent at best. By focusing on spaces, places, and ways in which visual practitioners perform craft today, we can enhance our understanding of the easily overlooked craftscape.

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Hand+Made: The Performative Impulse in Art and Craft picks up the dialogue at one of the murkier junctures. Curator Valerie Cassel Oliver’s use of the word performative as an organizing concept for an exhibition of work by artists, craftspeople, and designers immediately connects their individual practices to broader questions around performance art and performance in art. Performative impulses in craft are notoriously difficult to discuss, largely because they are easily masked by the never-ceasing art-versus-craft debate.2 Through renewed critical attention to craft, however, the work of the visual practitioners in Hand+Made also begs a critical question: where and how is craft performed?

In many ways, the contemporary art museum is the newest and perhaps most challenging site for the location of craft and the deployment of craftbased practices.3 Over the past several decades art practices have continued to migrate out of the white cube and into such spaces as the street, the art fair, and the home, essentially moving into sites already inhabited by craft. More specifically, craft has continuously dwelled and thrived in such public and private noninstitutional settings. Looking outside the spaces recognized as art’s domain reveals deeply embedded performative aspects of the practice of craft, uncovering ways in which the artists, craftspeople, and designers in Hand+Made are engaged in a practice that merges concept and craft, performance and objecthood.

A potter works with clay on a potter’s wheel, raising a deceptively shapeless mound into a hollow form that evokes the foundational structure of similar vessels lining the shelves of his or her booth at the arts and crafts fair. A fascinated crowd grows, some lingering to take in the slow raising of the clay, while others watch briefly, then move on to other things. The potter casually laughs, chats, and looks up, making eye contact while working with a nonchalance and facility at the task before him/her. Dirty hands dripping with clay, the potter provides a quiet spectacle of making that masquerades as an on-site studio.

This public craft performance at an “arts and crafts fair” is less about making an object or demonstrating how the potter on view makes a specific object than it is about the sleight of hand derived from repeatedly making the same kind of object. The potter immersed in craft as a practice makes a kind of object not once or a few times, but hundreds, even thousands of times. The performance of making an object at a fair is seductive, a “magician’s trick” of raising clay in which viewers willingly suspend their disbelief and allow themselves to make associations between the vessel they see being formed and the work on display. In other words, the performance is a vehicle through which the potter provides an illusion in which audiences perceive that they have witnessed the making of an object like the finished objects in the booth. In actuality, what was witnessed is an exercise executed over and over throughout the day as the potter repeatedly builds and destroys the same clay mound. By bringing a portion of the process of making into a public sphere, the potter also turns the public viewers into voyeurs who think they are seeing the private space of the studio.

It is this performance-on-the-street tradition from craftwork that Gabriel Craig engages through The Pro Bono Jeweler (2008–10; see fig. 13, p. 56), in which he fabricates jewelry in public. The space required to fabricate a basic

Fig. 13 Gabriel Craig performing The Pro Bono Jeweler, Quirk Gallery, Richmond, Virginia, 2009

piece of metal jewelry—a ring, for example—is much smaller and more compact than that required to trim, dry, glaze, fire, glaze, and refire even the simplest of ceramic mugs. Where the potter in the imagined scenario described above is, perhaps inadvertently, perpetuating the illusionistic sleight of hand of the street magician, Craig’s own street performance is a demystification of the simplest of processes.4 His demonstration-on-the-go simultaneously puts understanding of the process of making into the hands of passersby, connecting demonstration to conversation and personal agency. The rings he fabricates and then gifts to onlookers serve as souvenirs by which the wearers/recipients may better understand their own choices—both what they choose to purchase and the ways in which they may choose to use their own hands in the future to make rings of their own.

Here is where Craig’s performance actively and more self-consciously employs the latent performance potential of a crafted object. Perhaps the potter’s demonstration moved someone in the audience to purchase a piece; maybe it is a mug. The mug functions as an object awaiting use, a connection-inwaiting and a souvenir of an experience.5 Each time the owner uses the mug or invites a guest to use it, it serves as a reminder of a story to tell: “We saw the potter throw clay,” or “We saw the potter make a mug just like this one.”

The illusion that the observer—and now the owner of the mug—has seen the process of its making is further perpetuated; the performance of craft seen at the fair is imagined to mimic what happens in the studio. By contrast—and connection—Craig’s performance places the private sphere of the studio in the public realm of the street, turning demonstration into a social commentary, didactic lesson, and noncommercial gift in which the social life of an object carries additional meaning.6 The loop of performed making with the potter stops short at a limited verbal description for the viewer, while Craig’s loop becomes instead something closer to a start-to-finish description of the experience, in

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Hand+Made: The Performative Impulse in Art and Craft picks up the dialogue at one of the murkier junctures. Curator Valerie Cassel Oliver’s use of the word performative as an organizing concept for an exhibition of work by artists, craftspeople, and designers immediately connects their individual practices to broader questions around performance art and performance in art. Performative impulses in craft are notoriously difficult to discuss, largely because they are easily masked by the never-ceasing art-versus-craft debate.2 Through renewed critical attention to craft, however, the work of the visual practitioners in Hand+Made also begs a critical question: where and how is craft performed?

In many ways, the contemporary art museum is the newest and perhaps most challenging site for the location of craft and the deployment of craftbased practices.3 Over the past several decades art practices have continued to migrate out of the white cube and into such spaces as the street, the art fair, and the home, essentially moving into sites already inhabited by craft. More specifically, craft has continuously dwelled and thrived in such public and private noninstitutional settings. Looking outside the spaces recognized as art’s domain reveals deeply embedded performative aspects of the practice of craft, uncovering ways in which the artists, craftspeople, and designers in Hand+Made are engaged in a practice that merges concept and craft, performance and objecthood.

A potter works with clay on a potter’s wheel, raising a deceptively shapeless mound into a hollow form that evokes the foundational structure of similar vessels lining the shelves of his or her booth at the arts and crafts fair. A fascinated crowd grows, some lingering to take in the slow raising of the clay, while others watch briefly, then move on to other things. The potter casually laughs, chats, and looks up, making eye contact while working with a nonchalance and facility at the task before him/her. Dirty hands dripping with clay, the potter provides a quiet spectacle of making that masquerades as an on-site studio.

This public craft performance at an “arts and crafts fair” is less about making an object or demonstrating how the potter on view makes a specific object than it is about the sleight of hand derived from repeatedly making the same kind of object. The potter immersed in craft as a practice makes a kind of object not once or a few times, but hundreds, even thousands of times. The performance of making an object at a fair is seductive, a “magician’s trick” of raising clay in which viewers willingly suspend their disbelief and allow themselves to make associations between the vessel they see being formed and the work on display. In other words, the performance is a vehicle through which the potter provides an illusion in which audiences perceive that they have witnessed the making of an object like the finished objects in the booth. In actuality, what was witnessed is an exercise executed over and over throughout the day as the potter repeatedly builds and destroys the same clay mound. By bringing a portion of the process of making into a public sphere, the potter also turns the public viewers into voyeurs who think they are seeing the private space of the studio.

It is this performance-on-the-street tradition from craftwork that Gabriel Craig engages through The Pro Bono Jeweler (2008–10; see fig. 13, p. 56), in which he fabricates jewelry in public. The space required to fabricate a basic

Fig. 13 Gabriel Craig performing The Pro Bono Jeweler, Quirk Gallery, Richmond, Virginia, 2009

piece of metal jewelry—a ring, for example—is much smaller and more compact than that required to trim, dry, glaze, fire, glaze, and refire even the simplest of ceramic mugs. Where the potter in the imagined scenario described above is, perhaps inadvertently, perpetuating the illusionistic sleight of hand of the street magician, Craig’s own street performance is a demystification of the simplest of processes.4 His demonstration-on-the-go simultaneously puts understanding of the process of making into the hands of passersby, connecting demonstration to conversation and personal agency. The rings he fabricates and then gifts to onlookers serve as souvenirs by which the wearers/recipients may better understand their own choices—both what they choose to purchase and the ways in which they may choose to use their own hands in the future to make rings of their own.

Here is where Craig’s performance actively and more self-consciously employs the latent performance potential of a crafted object. Perhaps the potter’s demonstration moved someone in the audience to purchase a piece; maybe it is a mug. The mug functions as an object awaiting use, a connection-inwaiting and a souvenir of an experience.5 Each time the owner uses the mug or invites a guest to use it, it serves as a reminder of a story to tell: “We saw the potter throw clay,” or “We saw the potter make a mug just like this one.”

The illusion that the observer—and now the owner of the mug—has seen the process of its making is further perpetuated; the performance of craft seen at the fair is imagined to mimic what happens in the studio. By contrast—and connection—Craig’s performance places the private sphere of the studio in the public realm of the street, turning demonstration into a social commentary, didactic lesson, and noncommercial gift in which the social life of an object carries additional meaning.6 The loop of performed making with the potter stops short at a limited verbal description for the viewer, while Craig’s loop becomes instead something closer to a start-to-finish description of the experience, in

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which the wearer and viewer might be able to transpose the experience onto other jewelry in varied contexts.

The idea of looping and making public a portion of a complex craftoriented process brings us to Anne Wilson’s Wind-Up: Walking the Warp (2008; fig. 12, p. 100). Here Wilson takes one of the critical steps in the fabrication of any woven textile and turns a solitary, mundane, but essential piece of process into a meditative, physical, and collective performance.

A group of women gather around a quilting frame. Some stitch quietly while others share stories as the work progresses. Prior to their gathering, each quilter pieced together squares using store-bought or inherited fragments from previously used garments or domestic textiles. Together they stitch through a three-layered sandwich of fabric and batting, conjoining the now-larger squares of fabric into a single quilt. Methodically the quilters’ needles move in and out of the fabric, the tautness and length of the stitches measuring and revealing each one’s experience with needlework.

It is a multigenerational group, and more experienced quilters pause periodically to guide the less experienced with the work, directing their stitching to ensure that the quilt—created to commemorate a milestone in a woman’s life, perhaps a marriage, a birth, or a new home—will move from being an object of use to being a family heirloom.

To understand the move Wilson makes requires understanding the actions and process that take place in Wind-Up: Walking the Warp. The structure of any weaving is contingent on the intersection or interlacing of two sets of threads at right angles.7 Traditionally the warp threads hold together the structure of the weaving, while the weft threads are interlaced up and down between, creating the pattern, texture, or image of a woven textile. The warp threads must be measured to the correct length for a project in a manner that keeps them from tangling and allows them to be wound onto the loom. To accomplish this, a weaver typically winds thread from a skein onto a cone, then winds the warp threads to the determined lengths using a warping mill. Once wound, the warp is then wound onto a loom to create the lengthwise threads through which the weft is passed over and under to create any woven textile, as can be seen in Christy Matson’s Sonic Structure I (2006–10; p. 80).

Wilson’s performance of craft process made public calls attention to one of the most common locations of craft—the private, domestic realm—which has been the site of the performance of gendered, social, and collective craft for centuries.8 It is here that traditions are passed down through a series of social and communal gatherings, the tedium of hard labor forgotten in the beauty of the final object, pleasure found in both process and sharing. By making what is typically a solitary process public and collective, Wilson ties her work both to the collaborative and communal processes of constructing textiles such as quilts and to the conceptual tradition of Richard Serra’s Verb List (1967–68).9 While Serra’s list of action verbs is being explored once again in this moment of renewed interest in Minimalism, Conceptualism, and materialbased practices, it does not fully address the specificities of craft-based practitioners.10 Serra sought a means, a manifesto to move away from the idea of working toward the making of an object—or the preconceived idea of what he

wanted to make.11 In other words, he sought a means of undoing the stepbased process upon which craft relies. Serra’s list provides a useful way of thinking about how an individual’s actions affect or cause an effect upon a material—any material—but the resulting objects and events and the kind of actions that form the basis of his list function differently than actions employed in craft practices. When you look at a Serra piece executed according to an action verb—for example, to fold—your focus is on the effect of the action on the material. But if you look at the verb list through the lens of craft-based practices, it leaves you scratching your head. How do you reduce “center the clay on the potter’s wheel” to a simpler action? Or describe the action of placing a piece of wood on a lathe? Or communicate the full potential of possibilities in the deceptively simple action “to stitch”? What Wilson does here that links Serra to the conceptual aspects of her practice is to recognize the performative potential in the simple action verb to wind. But she does not execute it by herself. Instead she turns the action into a collaborative and collective process, thus tying the concept back into craft practices, textile-based works in particular, as carried out in the home.

It is 1976, and the entire country is deeply immersed in a celebration of the United States Bicentennial. For those of us in elementary school, this means trips to any number of “colonial villages,” where history is preserved and interpreted through idealized historical re-creations of life from a particular moment in time. On one such trip we watch a blacksmith forging metal.

His period attire and hairstyle seem excessive in the heat and a poor choice for the strenuous task in which he is engaged. Working to make the iron bend to his will requires movement back and forth between a hot, glowing fire and an anvil where brutal hammering shapes it, followed by the hissing quench of water to cool the object being forged. The work looks, sounds, and feels physically exhausting, particularly when the result is something as simple as a horseshoe or nail. The experience becomes frozen in time in my child’s mind as an antiquated process, part of a bygone moment.

Here is where craft is performed as history, as something that happened in the past.And this is where Theaster Gates executes a complex dislocation of multiple representations of the past, identity, and history (see fig. 14, p. 60). The retelling of history as a performative practice, as employed by Gates, is a retelling of a buried and nearly forgotten history—that of the unknown artisan. Gates, as a contemporary artist of African American ethnic identity who has studied ceramics in Japan, draws us into a rich and layered performance of craft as past history and historical revision. We understand the work being performed to be that of Theaster Gates; he is named and fully identified. In his performance Resurrecting Dave (2009), he deliberately references one of the few African American craftsmen from the past whose name has survived through history: Dave the Potter. But Dave the Potter, who was a slave, is not fully named. So in the invocation of Dave’s name linked with his own, Gates establishes his own connection to the myriad unnamed or unknown craftspeople of the past.

It is here too that Gates simultaneously invokes the history of The Unknown Craftsman: A Japanese Insight into Beauty, Soetsu Yanagi’s book adapted by

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which the wearer and viewer might be able to transpose the experience onto other jewelry in varied contexts.

The idea of looping and making public a portion of a complex craftoriented process brings us to Anne Wilson’s Wind-Up: Walking the Warp (2008; fig. 12, p. 100). Here Wilson takes one of the critical steps in the fabrication of any woven textile and turns a solitary, mundane, but essential piece of process into a meditative, physical, and collective performance.

A group of women gather around a quilting frame. Some stitch quietly while others share stories as the work progresses. Prior to their gathering, each quilter pieced together squares using store-bought or inherited fragments from previously used garments or domestic textiles. Together they stitch through a three-layered sandwich of fabric and batting, conjoining the now-larger squares of fabric into a single quilt. Methodically the quilters’ needles move in and out of the fabric, the tautness and length of the stitches measuring and revealing each one’s experience with needlework.

It is a multigenerational group, and more experienced quilters pause periodically to guide the less experienced with the work, directing their stitching to ensure that the quilt—created to commemorate a milestone in a woman’s life, perhaps a marriage, a birth, or a new home—will move from being an object of use to being a family heirloom.

To understand the move Wilson makes requires understanding the actions and process that take place in Wind-Up: Walking the Warp. The structure of any weaving is contingent on the intersection or interlacing of two sets of threads at right angles.7 Traditionally the warp threads hold together the structure of the weaving, while the weft threads are interlaced up and down between, creating the pattern, texture, or image of a woven textile. The warp threads must be measured to the correct length for a project in a manner that keeps them from tangling and allows them to be wound onto the loom. To accomplish this, a weaver typically winds thread from a skein onto a cone, then winds the warp threads to the determined lengths using a warping mill. Once wound, the warp is then wound onto a loom to create the lengthwise threads through which the weft is passed over and under to create any woven textile, as can be seen in Christy Matson’s Sonic Structure I (2006–10; p. 80).

Wilson’s performance of craft process made public calls attention to one of the most common locations of craft—the private, domestic realm—which has been the site of the performance of gendered, social, and collective craft for centuries.8 It is here that traditions are passed down through a series of social and communal gatherings, the tedium of hard labor forgotten in the beauty of the final object, pleasure found in both process and sharing. By making what is typically a solitary process public and collective, Wilson ties her work both to the collaborative and communal processes of constructing textiles such as quilts and to the conceptual tradition of Richard Serra’s Verb List (1967–68).9 While Serra’s list of action verbs is being explored once again in this moment of renewed interest in Minimalism, Conceptualism, and materialbased practices, it does not fully address the specificities of craft-based practitioners.10 Serra sought a means, a manifesto to move away from the idea of working toward the making of an object—or the preconceived idea of what he

wanted to make.11 In other words, he sought a means of undoing the stepbased process upon which craft relies. Serra’s list provides a useful way of thinking about how an individual’s actions affect or cause an effect upon a material—any material—but the resulting objects and events and the kind of actions that form the basis of his list function differently than actions employed in craft practices. When you look at a Serra piece executed according to an action verb—for example, to fold—your focus is on the effect of the action on the material. But if you look at the verb list through the lens of craft-based practices, it leaves you scratching your head. How do you reduce “center the clay on the potter’s wheel” to a simpler action? Or describe the action of placing a piece of wood on a lathe? Or communicate the full potential of possibilities in the deceptively simple action “to stitch”? What Wilson does here that links Serra to the conceptual aspects of her practice is to recognize the performative potential in the simple action verb to wind. But she does not execute it by herself. Instead she turns the action into a collaborative and collective process, thus tying the concept back into craft practices, textile-based works in particular, as carried out in the home.

It is 1976, and the entire country is deeply immersed in a celebration of the United States Bicentennial. For those of us in elementary school, this means trips to any number of “colonial villages,” where history is preserved and interpreted through idealized historical re-creations of life from a particular moment in time. On one such trip we watch a blacksmith forging metal.

His period attire and hairstyle seem excessive in the heat and a poor choice for the strenuous task in which he is engaged. Working to make the iron bend to his will requires movement back and forth between a hot, glowing fire and an anvil where brutal hammering shapes it, followed by the hissing quench of water to cool the object being forged. The work looks, sounds, and feels physically exhausting, particularly when the result is something as simple as a horseshoe or nail. The experience becomes frozen in time in my child’s mind as an antiquated process, part of a bygone moment.

Here is where craft is performed as history, as something that happened in the past.And this is where Theaster Gates executes a complex dislocation of multiple representations of the past, identity, and history (see fig. 14, p. 60). The retelling of history as a performative practice, as employed by Gates, is a retelling of a buried and nearly forgotten history—that of the unknown artisan. Gates, as a contemporary artist of African American ethnic identity who has studied ceramics in Japan, draws us into a rich and layered performance of craft as past history and historical revision. We understand the work being performed to be that of Theaster Gates; he is named and fully identified. In his performance Resurrecting Dave (2009), he deliberately references one of the few African American craftsmen from the past whose name has survived through history: Dave the Potter. But Dave the Potter, who was a slave, is not fully named. So in the invocation of Dave’s name linked with his own, Gates establishes his own connection to the myriad unnamed or unknown craftspeople of the past.

It is here too that Gates simultaneously invokes the history of The Unknown Craftsman: A Japanese Insight into Beauty, Soetsu Yanagi’s book adapted by

32

33

Fig. 14 Theaster Gates’s Temple Performance at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, 2009

Bernard Leach and popularized in America during the 1950s by a nationwide lecture and workshop tour.12 The Mingei movement, with its celebration of art and beauty from the simplest of folk traditions, espoused aesthetic values in objects made by anonymous craftsmen working in long-standing folk traditions. Gates reminds us that a celebration of an anonymous Japanese craftsman as the producer of a ceramic vessel is steeped in Japanese ceramic tradition. This imagined folk artisan inhabits a very different history than the unknown slave, who was not even considered human and whose presence in history is overlooked, erased beyond the ability to celebrate the works of his or her hands. Gates’s “co-location” calls attention to the richness of the embodied experiences of the performance of craft as history, as he draws sound, the physical presence of the body, ethnicity, and globalization (how many other unknown craftspeople are there?) into a new conversation. He challenges us to reexamine not only historical village reenactments but also the history of race (the “Black Question” versus the “Yellow Question”) and the humanistic and cultural value that we place upon craft objects and those who make them.

The works in Hand+Made bring out multiple ways in which embodied difference is practiced at this moment. The artists, craftspeople, and designers represented in this exhibition are trained to practice in a range of ways, to work conceptually and materially. But there is more being performed here than the manipulation of materials, more than a materially driven practice. These visual practitioners do not inhabit a liminal zone between art and craft. They are the executors of their projects from concept to performance, idea to object, an important point of difference that allows the work to move through and between categories, to be many things all at once. They are deeply immersed in a range of practices that enable a certain kind of boundary crossing in which their performative impulses can be understood from a range of viewpoints.

From my perspective as a curator in a museum dedicated to craft, I see ways in which the works “on view” reveal practices that connect deeply to ways in which craft performs—physically, culturally, historically, and materially. It was, however, a challenge to look through craft versus through art history. This essay seeks a shift away from the comfortable space art historians and contemporary artists easily inhabit to instead connect vernacular craft practices that operate concurrently outside the museum and gallery environments with the conceptual and material practices increasingly surfacing in museums and galleries today. In this way, the richly layered cultural dimension of craft may be revealed and critically engaged.As Shannon Stratton states: “Craft is something we do. It is active, it is acting, it does.”13 Now is an opportunity to rethink craft and, through this exhibition, to consider how craft performs.

NOTES 1. Arjun Appadurai, Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996), 12–13.

2. For a recent discussion of this centuries-old war, see Garth Clark, How Envy Killed the Crafts Movement: An Autopsy in Two Parts (Portland, Ore.: Museum of Contemporary Craft and Pacific Northwest College of Art, 2008).

3. For a discussion of cultural productivity, see Homi K. Bhabha, The Location of Culture (London: Routledge, 1994). I would like to recognize Judith Leemann and Shannon Stratton for this idea of the deployment of craft in a conversation related to their project Gestures of Resistance for the Museum of Contemporary Craft in partnership with Pacific Northwest College of Art, January 2010.

4. Anne Marie Oliver’s essay “Red Rabbit: David Eckard’s Prestidigitation” and the piece about which it is written contributed to my thinking about the relationship between the performance of craft and the street magician (Call + Response, Museum of Contemporary Craft in partnership with Pacific Northwest College of Art, Portland, Oregon, http://www.museumofcontemporarycraft.org/call/pairings/eckard.html).

5. For a discussion of the souvenir as an object that communicates experience, see Susan Stewart, On Longing: Narratives of the Miniature, the Gigantic, the Souvenir, the Collection (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1996).

6. For an exploration of ways in which people attach cultural value to objects through exchange, see Arjun Appadurai, The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988).

7. See Anne Wilson, “Notes on Wind-Up:Walking theWarp,” http://www.annewilsonartist.com/ pdfs/wind-up2.pdf.

8. See Rozsika Parker, The Subversive Stitch: Embroidery and the Making of the Feminine (London: Women’s Press, 1984), and Joan Livingstone and John Ploof, eds., The Object of Labor: Art, Cloth, and Cultural Production (Chicago: School of the Art Institute of Chicago Press; Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2007).

9. Richard Serra, “Verb List Compilation: Actions to Relate to Oneself,” The Ubu Web Anthology of Conceptual Writing, http://www.ubu.com/concept/serra_verb.html.

10. Kate Mondloch, “Verb List Compilation for Three Artists: Jane Aaron, Lauren Kalman, Mark Hursty,” Elusive Matter, Museum of Contemporary Craft in partnership with Pacific Northwest College of Art, Portland, Oregon, http://museumofcontemporarycraft.org/pdf/ 2009_11_elusive_matter.pdf. Mondloch, Anthony Elms, Anjali Gupta, Judith Leemann, and Shannon Stratton have reported that the use of Serra’s verb list as a tool to understand and address current interests in materially driven practices has surfaced in their students’ writing and in conversations with artists and curators (conversations with the author, 2009–10). Discussions with them contributed to my questions about the relationship between Serra’s list of action verbs and a comparable list for craft-type actions.

11. “The verb list allowed me to experiment without any preconceived idea about what I was going to make and not worry about the history of sculpture. I wasn’t burdened by any prescripted definition of material, process, or end product” (Richard Serra, in Kynaston McShine, “A Conversation about Work with Richard Serra,” in Richard Serra Sculpture: Forty Years [New York: Museum of Modern Art, 2007], 27).

12. In 1952 Yanagi, Leach, and Shoji Hamada introduced “the Mingei Movement to the United States through a series of lectures and workshops held from Los Angeles, California, to Black Mountain College, North Carolina. The Mingei Movement inspired the nation, prompting a shift in the way artists worked with clay: West Coast stoneware was replaced with new clay bodies, molds with potter’s wheels and colorful glazes created from local sources replaced with muted earth tones, wax-resist designs and painterly applications of glazes. The introduction coincided with a counter-culture fascination with Zen Buddhism and East Asian ideas, including such explorations as Alan Watts’ version of American Zen on his Berkeley, California, radio program and the writings of Beat Generation icons Allen Ginsberg and Gary Snyder” (Namita Gupta Wiggers, “1950s: The Decade of the Northwest Ceramic Annuals,” in Unpacking the Collection: Selections from the Museum of Contemporary Craft [Portland, Ore.: Museum of Contemporary Craft, 2008], 30).

13. Shannon Stratton, untitled lecture presented at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago for the series From Trash to Spectacle: Materiality in Contemporary Art Production, April 1, 2009, http://www.shannonstratton.com/from-trash-to-spectacle-lectur/.

32

33

Fig. 14 Theaster Gates’s Temple Performance at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, 2009

Bernard Leach and popularized in America during the 1950s by a nationwide lecture and workshop tour.12 The Mingei movement, with its celebration of art and beauty from the simplest of folk traditions, espoused aesthetic values in objects made by anonymous craftsmen working in long-standing folk traditions. Gates reminds us that a celebration of an anonymous Japanese craftsman as the producer of a ceramic vessel is steeped in Japanese ceramic tradition. This imagined folk artisan inhabits a very different history than the unknown slave, who was not even considered human and whose presence in history is overlooked, erased beyond the ability to celebrate the works of his or her hands. Gates’s “co-location” calls attention to the richness of the embodied experiences of the performance of craft as history, as he draws sound, the physical presence of the body, ethnicity, and globalization (how many other unknown craftspeople are there?) into a new conversation. He challenges us to reexamine not only historical village reenactments but also the history of race (the “Black Question” versus the “Yellow Question”) and the humanistic and cultural value that we place upon craft objects and those who make them.

The works in Hand+Made bring out multiple ways in which embodied difference is practiced at this moment. The artists, craftspeople, and designers represented in this exhibition are trained to practice in a range of ways, to work conceptually and materially. But there is more being performed here than the manipulation of materials, more than a materially driven practice. These visual practitioners do not inhabit a liminal zone between art and craft. They are the executors of their projects from concept to performance, idea to object, an important point of difference that allows the work to move through and between categories, to be many things all at once. They are deeply immersed in a range of practices that enable a certain kind of boundary crossing in which their performative impulses can be understood from a range of viewpoints.

From my perspective as a curator in a museum dedicated to craft, I see ways in which the works “on view” reveal practices that connect deeply to ways in which craft performs—physically, culturally, historically, and materially. It was, however, a challenge to look through craft versus through art history. This essay seeks a shift away from the comfortable space art historians and contemporary artists easily inhabit to instead connect vernacular craft practices that operate concurrently outside the museum and gallery environments with the conceptual and material practices increasingly surfacing in museums and galleries today. In this way, the richly layered cultural dimension of craft may be revealed and critically engaged.As Shannon Stratton states: “Craft is something we do. It is active, it is acting, it does.”13 Now is an opportunity to rethink craft and, through this exhibition, to consider how craft performs.

NOTES 1. Arjun Appadurai, Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996), 12–13.

2. For a recent discussion of this centuries-old war, see Garth Clark, How Envy Killed the Crafts Movement: An Autopsy in Two Parts (Portland, Ore.: Museum of Contemporary Craft and Pacific Northwest College of Art, 2008).

3. For a discussion of cultural productivity, see Homi K. Bhabha, The Location of Culture (London: Routledge, 1994). I would like to recognize Judith Leemann and Shannon Stratton for this idea of the deployment of craft in a conversation related to their project Gestures of Resistance for the Museum of Contemporary Craft in partnership with Pacific Northwest College of Art, January 2010.

4. Anne Marie Oliver’s essay “Red Rabbit: David Eckard’s Prestidigitation” and the piece about which it is written contributed to my thinking about the relationship between the performance of craft and the street magician (Call + Response, Museum of Contemporary Craft in partnership with Pacific Northwest College of Art, Portland, Oregon, http://www.museumofcontemporarycraft.org/call/pairings/eckard.html).

5. For a discussion of the souvenir as an object that communicates experience, see Susan Stewart, On Longing: Narratives of the Miniature, the Gigantic, the Souvenir, the Collection (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1996).

6. For an exploration of ways in which people attach cultural value to objects through exchange, see Arjun Appadurai, The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988).

7. See Anne Wilson, “Notes on Wind-Up:Walking theWarp,” http://www.annewilsonartist.com/ pdfs/wind-up2.pdf.

8. See Rozsika Parker, The Subversive Stitch: Embroidery and the Making of the Feminine (London: Women’s Press, 1984), and Joan Livingstone and John Ploof, eds., The Object of Labor: Art, Cloth, and Cultural Production (Chicago: School of the Art Institute of Chicago Press; Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2007).

9. Richard Serra, “Verb List Compilation: Actions to Relate to Oneself,” The Ubu Web Anthology of Conceptual Writing, http://www.ubu.com/concept/serra_verb.html.

10. Kate Mondloch, “Verb List Compilation for Three Artists: Jane Aaron, Lauren Kalman, Mark Hursty,” Elusive Matter, Museum of Contemporary Craft in partnership with Pacific Northwest College of Art, Portland, Oregon, http://museumofcontemporarycraft.org/pdf/ 2009_11_elusive_matter.pdf. Mondloch, Anthony Elms, Anjali Gupta, Judith Leemann, and Shannon Stratton have reported that the use of Serra’s verb list as a tool to understand and address current interests in materially driven practices has surfaced in their students’ writing and in conversations with artists and curators (conversations with the author, 2009–10). Discussions with them contributed to my questions about the relationship between Serra’s list of action verbs and a comparable list for craft-type actions.

11. “The verb list allowed me to experiment without any preconceived idea about what I was going to make and not worry about the history of sculpture. I wasn’t burdened by any prescripted definition of material, process, or end product” (Richard Serra, in Kynaston McShine, “A Conversation about Work with Richard Serra,” in Richard Serra Sculpture: Forty Years [New York: Museum of Modern Art, 2007], 27).

12. In 1952 Yanagi, Leach, and Shoji Hamada introduced “the Mingei Movement to the United States through a series of lectures and workshops held from Los Angeles, California, to Black Mountain College, North Carolina. The Mingei Movement inspired the nation, prompting a shift in the way artists worked with clay: West Coast stoneware was replaced with new clay bodies, molds with potter’s wheels and colorful glazes created from local sources replaced with muted earth tones, wax-resist designs and painterly applications of glazes. The introduction coincided with a counter-culture fascination with Zen Buddhism and East Asian ideas, including such explorations as Alan Watts’ version of American Zen on his Berkeley, California, radio program and the writings of Beat Generation icons Allen Ginsberg and Gary Snyder” (Namita Gupta Wiggers, “1950s: The Decade of the Northwest Ceramic Annuals,” in Unpacking the Collection: Selections from the Museum of Contemporary Craft [Portland, Ore.: Museum of Contemporary Craft, 2008], 30).

13. Shannon Stratton, untitled lecture presented at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago for the series From Trash to Spectacle: Materiality in Contemporary Art Production, April 1, 2009, http://www.shannonstratton.com/from-trash-to-spectacle-lectur/.

Some works created specifically for the current exhibition could not be illustrated and are represented by earlier works by the artist. The titles of illustrated works that are not included in the exhibition are followed by an asterisk (*). Unless otherwise noted in captions, all illustrated works are courtesy of the artists.

Catalogue entries by

SARAH G. CASSIDY

PLATES

Some works created specifically for the current exhibition could not be illustrated and are represented by earlier works by the artist. The titles of illustrated works that are not included in the exhibition are followed by an asterisk (*). Unless otherwise noted in captions, all illustrated works are courtesy of the artists.

Catalogue entries by

SARAH G. CASSIDY

PLATES

36

Inspired by the extravagant productions of the machine performance art group Survival Research Laboratories, B Team’s Spontaneous Combustion I (1996) was a dangerous and exciting spectacle that required numerous participants and several months of planning. The performance, which integrated lighting and music, utilized the peril and suspense inherent in the technique of glassblowing. It honored the history of the craft while pushing it into the future, proving that glass art can engage in a contemporary art dialogue. Acknowledging the commercial, mass-production aspect of glass, more than forty participants blew mannequin heads that bubbled and exploded as they were dropped into a tank of water. Television sets mounted on the walls showed the performance as it was happening. As lightbulbs rained from the sky, one participant began shooting globs of hot glass at a target as another, Kelly Lamb, wearing rubber shoes, danced on the molten glass. More molten glass was poured onto a steel umbrella, cooling as it hit the ground. In 1997 B Team repeated the performance in Spontaneous Combustion II. The events garnered significant attention—not from the craft world, however, B Team Kelly Lamb of B Team performing Dancing on Molten Glass, part of Spontaneous Combustion II, UrbanGlass, Brooklyn, 1997

but from artists and curators of contemporary art.

Opposite: Thor Bueno of B Team performing Raining Molten Glass, part of Spontaneous Combustion II, UrbanGlass, Brooklyn, 1997

BTEAM

36

Inspired by the extravagant productions of the machine performance art group Survival Research Laboratories, B Team’s Spontaneous Combustion I (1996) was a dangerous and exciting spectacle that required numerous participants and several months of planning. The performance, which integrated lighting and music, utilized the peril and suspense inherent in the technique of glassblowing. It honored the history of the craft while pushing it into the future, proving that glass art can engage in a contemporary art dialogue. Acknowledging the commercial, mass-production aspect of glass, more than forty participants blew mannequin heads that bubbled and exploded as they were dropped into a tank of water. Television sets mounted on the walls showed the performance as it was happening. As lightbulbs rained from the sky, one participant began shooting globs of hot glass at a target as another, Kelly Lamb, wearing rubber shoes, danced on the molten glass. More molten glass was poured onto a steel umbrella, cooling as it hit the ground. In 1997 B Team repeated the performance in Spontaneous Combustion II. The events garnered significant attention—not from the craft world, however, B Team Kelly Lamb of B Team performing Dancing on Molten Glass, part of Spontaneous Combustion II, UrbanGlass, Brooklyn, 1997

but from artists and curators of contemporary art.

Opposite: Thor Bueno of B Team performing Raining Molten Glass, part of Spontaneous Combustion II, UrbanGlass, Brooklyn, 1997

BTEAM

B Team Opposite: Members of B Team performing Making of the Fear Jar, part of Spontaneous Combustion II, UrbanGlass, Brooklyn, 1997 Participants: Thor Bueno (background); Evan Snyderman, Zesty Meyers, and Thor Bueno (top); Zesty Meyers and Thor Bueno (bottom) Right: Members of B Team during the making of the Tricks video: Kelly Lamb learning how to dance on molten glass, 1997 Participants: Zesty Meyers, Kelly Lamb, and Jeff Zimmerman Bottom: Writing for the Tricks video, 1997*

B Team Opposite: Members of B Team performing Making of the Fear Jar, part of Spontaneous Combustion II, UrbanGlass, Brooklyn, 1997 Participants: Thor Bueno (background); Evan Snyderman, Zesty Meyers, and Thor Bueno (top); Zesty Meyers and Thor Bueno (bottom) Right: Members of B Team during the making of the Tricks video: Kelly Lamb learning how to dance on molten glass, 1997 Participants: Zesty Meyers, Kelly Lamb, and Jeff Zimmerman Bottom: Writing for the Tricks video, 1997*

40

41

Conrad Bakker’s carved and painted wood objects are similar enough to the commercial products that they simulate to trick the eye upon first glance but imperfect enough to prompt further investigation. Their flaws are humorous at first: a smudge of paint, the crowding of words on a logo, crooked lines, and inaccurate proportions. These imperfections transform the object from pure mimesis into a critique of consumer culture. But rather than offer a critique positioned from the outside, Bakker’s objects are integrated within that culture, placed in stores, as in Untitled Project: Consumer Actions (2002), or available for purchase online, as in

Untitled Project: eBay Tupperware (2003). This integration shifts the focus from a critique to an exploration Conrad Bakker Untitled Project: Commodity [Capital] order form, 2007* Printed advertisement for a carved and painted wood copy of Karl Marx’s Capital, vol. 1 (1867)

of our relationships to consumer objects.

In Untitled Project: Book-of-the-Month-Club (2010), Bakker offers a limited-edition yearlong subscription for his carved and painted books. As with traditional mail-order book clubs, subscribers receive a book each month, with the option either to keep it or to exchange it for another. By applying a model created to encourage book buying among ordinary consumers to the activity of collecting art, which is often seen as the province of the wealthy, Bakker raises questions about social class and the intersection of art and commerce.

C O N R A D

BAKKER

Conrad Bakker Untitled Project: Untitled Product Distribution Network order form, 2004* Printed advertisement for Untitled Product (Concentrate) (carved and painted bottle) on card stock

40

41

Conrad Bakker’s carved and painted wood objects are similar enough to the commercial products that they simulate to trick the eye upon first glance but imperfect enough to prompt further investigation. Their flaws are humorous at first: a smudge of paint, the crowding of words on a logo, crooked lines, and inaccurate proportions. These imperfections transform the object from pure mimesis into a critique of consumer culture. But rather than offer a critique positioned from the outside, Bakker’s objects are integrated within that culture, placed in stores, as in Untitled Project: Consumer Actions (2002), or available for purchase online, as in

Untitled Project: eBay Tupperware (2003). This integration shifts the focus from a critique to an exploration Conrad Bakker Untitled Project: Commodity [Capital] order form, 2007* Printed advertisement for a carved and painted wood copy of Karl Marx’s Capital, vol. 1 (1867)

of our relationships to consumer objects.

In Untitled Project: Book-of-the-Month-Club (2010), Bakker offers a limited-edition yearlong subscription for his carved and painted books. As with traditional mail-order book clubs, subscribers receive a book each month, with the option either to keep it or to exchange it for another. By applying a model created to encourage book buying among ordinary consumers to the activity of collecting art, which is often seen as the province of the wealthy, Bakker raises questions about social class and the intersection of art and commerce.

C O N R A D

BAKKER

Conrad Bakker Untitled Project: Untitled Product Distribution Network order form, 2004* Printed advertisement for Untitled Product (Concentrate) (carved and painted bottle) on card stock

42

43

Conrad Bakker Untitled Project: Paperback (101 Things), 2009* Carved wood, paint 7 5/8 x 51/4 x 1/4 inches

Opposite: Untitled Project: Paperback (Rock), 2009* Carved wood, paint 71/8 x 41/4 x 3/4 inches

42

43

Conrad Bakker Untitled Project: Paperback (101 Things), 2009* Carved wood, paint 7 5/8 x 51/4 x 1/4 inches

Opposite: Untitled Project: Paperback (Rock), 2009* Carved wood, paint 71/8 x 41/4 x 3/4 inches

45

44

Nick Cave is a sculptor, dancer, fiber and performance artist, and fashion designer. His Soundsuits are multimedia wearable sculptures meant to be activated through dance. Their name comes from the sounds that they make while their wearer dances. These suits combine Cave’s training in fiber art, fashion design, and modern dance. Since producing his first suit, made entirely of twigs, in 1992, Cave has made more than ninety. They are composed of materials such as hair, bottle caps, buttons, toys, figurines, yarn, found fabric, and natural materials. The consistent inclusion of found objects, especially discarded goods, suggests economy, community, and ingenuity, yet in their meticulous construction and striking presence, the suits evoke haute couture. For the performer, who is often Cave himself, the suit is a means of expression and liberation, as the body within the suit is unidentifiable.

For the audience, the suits elicit strong emotions and point to issues of tradition, ceremony, and ritual.

As objects that summon myth and history, they speak to a collective human consciousness.

Nick Cave Untitled (Soundsuit), 2009 (detail)* (see back cover)

N I C K

CAVE

Nick Cave Untitled (Soundsuit), 2008 (detail)* Fabric, beads, mixed media 106 x 36 x 28 inches

45

44

Nick Cave is a sculptor, dancer, fiber and performance artist, and fashion designer. His Soundsuits are multimedia wearable sculptures meant to be activated through dance. Their name comes from the sounds that they make while their wearer dances. These suits combine Cave’s training in fiber art, fashion design, and modern dance. Since producing his first suit, made entirely of twigs, in 1992, Cave has made more than ninety. They are composed of materials such as hair, bottle caps, buttons, toys, figurines, yarn, found fabric, and natural materials. The consistent inclusion of found objects, especially discarded goods, suggests economy, community, and ingenuity, yet in their meticulous construction and striking presence, the suits evoke haute couture. For the performer, who is often Cave himself, the suit is a means of expression and liberation, as the body within the suit is unidentifiable.

For the audience, the suits elicit strong emotions and point to issues of tradition, ceremony, and ritual.

As objects that summon myth and history, they speak to a collective human consciousness.

Nick Cave Untitled (Soundsuit), 2009 (detail)* (see back cover)

N I C K

CAVE

Nick Cave Untitled (Soundsuit), 2008 (detail)* Fabric, beads, mixed media 106 x 36 x 28 inches

46

47

Nick Cave Untitled (Soundsuits), both 2009* Mixed media 106 x 36 x 28 inches

46

47

Nick Cave Untitled (Soundsuits), both 2009* Mixed media 106 x 36 x 28 inches

48

Cat Chow is a sculptor who invokes elements of fashion design and dressmaking in her work. In college she initially majored in mathematics, and although she ultimately earned a degree in theater, her background and interest in math are evident in her work. Often painstakingly crafted from common materials such as wire, measuring tape, washers, dollar bills, or a single zipper, Chow’s works are a feat of planning and execution. Evident in her work are intentional applications of postminimalist and conceptual ideologies, meticulous workmanship, and aesthetic prowess. Through this rich and complex artistic practice, she becomes artist as social commentator. For Not for Sale (2002), she cut one thousand donated one-dollar bills into strips and wove them into a fabric that forms a dress. This piece evokes issues of gender and identity, sexuality and power, and fashion and commerce. For the donor, questions of legality and responsibility arise. The piece becomes a challenge to real and unreal laws that govern our perceptions of value, beauty, and worth. Accompanying Not for Sale is a box for donations for the creation of a new work, which the artist will give to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, upon its completion.

C A T

CHOW

Cat Chow Not for Sale, 2002 1,000 donated U.S. dollar bills, shredded; invisible thread; fishing line; glue; list of 1,000 sponsors 72 x 24 x 24 inches

48

Cat Chow is a sculptor who invokes elements of fashion design and dressmaking in her work. In college she initially majored in mathematics, and although she ultimately earned a degree in theater, her background and interest in math are evident in her work. Often painstakingly crafted from common materials such as wire, measuring tape, washers, dollar bills, or a single zipper, Chow’s works are a feat of planning and execution. Evident in her work are intentional applications of postminimalist and conceptual ideologies, meticulous workmanship, and aesthetic prowess. Through this rich and complex artistic practice, she becomes artist as social commentator. For Not for Sale (2002), she cut one thousand donated one-dollar bills into strips and wove them into a fabric that forms a dress. This piece evokes issues of gender and identity, sexuality and power, and fashion and commerce. For the donor, questions of legality and responsibility arise. The piece becomes a challenge to real and unreal laws that govern our perceptions of value, beauty, and worth. Accompanying Not for Sale is a box for donations for the creation of a new work, which the artist will give to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, upon its completion.

C A T

CHOW

Cat Chow Not for Sale, 2002 1,000 donated U.S. dollar bills, shredded; invisible thread; fishing line; glue; list of 1,000 sponsors 72 x 24 x 24 inches

50

51

Cat Chow Not for Sale, 2002 (details) 1,000 donated U.S. dollar bills, shredded; invisible thread; fishing line; glue; list of 1,000 sponsors 72 x 24 x 24 inches

50

51

Cat Chow Not for Sale, 2002 (details) 1,000 donated U.S. dollar bills, shredded; invisible thread; fishing line; glue; list of 1,000 sponsors 72 x 24 x 24 inches

52

In her work Sonya Clark draws upon her diasporic heritage, honoring the craft traditions of West Africa while recognizing and investigating the presence of those traditions in contemporary African American culture. Culture and the effect traditions and objects have on the individual are among her central themes.

Integrating beads, hair, combs, copper, fabric, and fibers into her sculptural work, she utilizes techniques associated with women’s handiwork, including beading, weaving, braiding, and sewing. In her Wig series, made from crocheted and braided fibers, Clark examines hair as a cultural signifier through the African tradition of braiding and the history of the relationship between hair and beauty. Women “wear” their hair, and Clark’s headdresses reflect this attitude. The braids become sculptural and allude to nature, forming Sonya Clark Dryad, 1998 (detail) Thread, cloth 10 x 14 x 14 inches Collection James Dozier

shapes like trees (Two Trees, 1998), peapods (Unum, 1998), and seedlings (Pepperhead, 1999). This creates a chain of associations from tree and plant roots to hair roots to cultural roots. Situated on the head, these wigs seem to be antennas, channeling experience into knowledge and cultural awareness.

S O N Y A

CLARK

Sonya Clark Pepperhead, 1999 Straw, pompoms 10 x 14 x 14 inches

52

In her work Sonya Clark draws upon her diasporic heritage, honoring the craft traditions of West Africa while recognizing and investigating the presence of those traditions in contemporary African American culture. Culture and the effect traditions and objects have on the individual are among her central themes.

Integrating beads, hair, combs, copper, fabric, and fibers into her sculptural work, she utilizes techniques associated with women’s handiwork, including beading, weaving, braiding, and sewing. In her Wig series, made from crocheted and braided fibers, Clark examines hair as a cultural signifier through the African tradition of braiding and the history of the relationship between hair and beauty. Women “wear” their hair, and Clark’s headdresses reflect this attitude. The braids become sculptural and allude to nature, forming Sonya Clark Dryad, 1998 (detail) Thread, cloth 10 x 14 x 14 inches Collection James Dozier

shapes like trees (Two Trees, 1998), peapods (Unum, 1998), and seedlings (Pepperhead, 1999). This creates a chain of associations from tree and plant roots to hair roots to cultural roots. Situated on the head, these wigs seem to be antennas, channeling experience into knowledge and cultural awareness.

S O N Y A

CLARK

Sonya Clark Pepperhead, 1999 Straw, pompoms 10 x 14 x 14 inches

54

55

Sonya Clark Two Trees, 1998* Thread, cloth 61/2 x 17 3/4 x 93/4 inches Indianapolis Museum of Art; Mr. and Mrs. William B. Ansted Jr. Art Fund

Dryad, 1998 Thread, cloth 10 x 14 x 14 inches Collection James Dozier Spider, 1998 Thread, cloth 4 x 8 x 8 inches Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, Wisconsin; Purchase, through Rudolph and Louise Langer Fund

Hemi, 1998 Thread, cloth 4 x 8 x 8 inches Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, Wisconsin; Purchase, through Rudolph and Louise Langer Fund Onigi 13, 1997 Thread, cloth 10 x 14 x 14 inches

54

55

Sonya Clark Two Trees, 1998* Thread, cloth 61/2 x 17 3/4 x 93/4 inches Indianapolis Museum of Art; Mr. and Mrs. William B. Ansted Jr. Art Fund

Dryad, 1998 Thread, cloth 10 x 14 x 14 inches Collection James Dozier Spider, 1998 Thread, cloth 4 x 8 x 8 inches Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, Wisconsin; Purchase, through Rudolph and Louise Langer Fund

Hemi, 1998 Thread, cloth 4 x 8 x 8 inches Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, Wisconsin; Purchase, through Rudolph and Louise Langer Fund Onigi 13, 1997 Thread, cloth 10 x 14 x 14 inches

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Gabriel Craig uses performance to connect the world of studio jewelry with the general public.

He stages what he calls “guerrilla jewelry performances,” bringing his jeweler’s bench into college quads and town squares and offering impromptu custom work while providing demonstrations and materials for passersby to create their own jewelry.

The Pro Bono Jeweler (2008–10) is an ongoing project that originated from a need to reintroduce the craft of jewelry making into the vernacular.

It has evolved to be about awareness of jewelry and to ignite creativity in participants, encouraging interest in jewelry not only as a product but also as a practice. Continuing Craig’s mission to spread awareness about craft, The Gospel according to Craft (2009) is a performance in which the artist stands on a soapbox in a public place, wearing a suit similar to a minister’s, asking people to talk with him about craft. He talks about the sin in disregarding the power of the hand and in preferring commercial, mass-produced goods. The knowledge, awareness, and connoisseurship communicated through the guerrilla performances deflate notions of class and commercialism, proving that well-crafted

G A B R I E L

and beautiful work does not have to come in a little blue box.

CRAIG

Gabriel Craig The artist performing The Gospel according to Craft, Broad Street, Richmond, Virginia, 2009 Still from video documentation of performance The artist performing The Collegiate Jeweler, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, 2007

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Gabriel Craig uses performance to connect the world of studio jewelry with the general public.

He stages what he calls “guerrilla jewelry performances,” bringing his jeweler’s bench into college quads and town squares and offering impromptu custom work while providing demonstrations and materials for passersby to create their own jewelry.

The Pro Bono Jeweler (2008–10) is an ongoing project that originated from a need to reintroduce the craft of jewelry making into the vernacular.

It has evolved to be about awareness of jewelry and to ignite creativity in participants, encouraging interest in jewelry not only as a product but also as a practice. Continuing Craig’s mission to spread awareness about craft, The Gospel according to Craft (2009) is a performance in which the artist stands on a soapbox in a public place, wearing a suit similar to a minister’s, asking people to talk with him about craft. He talks about the sin in disregarding the power of the hand and in preferring commercial, mass-produced goods. The knowledge, awareness, and connoisseurship communicated through the guerrilla performances deflate notions of class and commercialism, proving that well-crafted

G A B R I E L

and beautiful work does not have to come in a little blue box.

CRAIG

Gabriel Craig The artist performing The Gospel according to Craft, Broad Street, Richmond, Virginia, 2009 Still from video documentation of performance The artist performing The Collegiate Jeweler, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, 2007

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Gabriel Craig Above and opposite: The artist performing The Pro Bono Jeweler, Quirk Gallery, Richmond, Virginia, 2009 Left: Rings from The Collegiate Jeweler and The Pro Bono Jeweler, 2007–10* Sterling silver 15/16 x 11/4 x 3/16 inches

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Gabriel Craig Above and opposite: The artist performing The Pro Bono Jeweler, Quirk Gallery, Richmond, Virginia, 2009 Left: Rings from The Collegiate Jeweler and The Pro Bono Jeweler, 2007–10* Sterling silver 15/16 x 11/4 x 3/16 inches

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Theaster Gates creates, in his own words, “sculpture, performance, space, and friendship.” In Dave: A Legendary Black Clay Superhero and A Closer Walk with Thee (both 2010), Gates provides a stage for his own music inspired by the writings of Dave the Potter. Dave the Potter, or Dave Drake, was a slave born in South Carolina at the beginning of the nineteenth century. He made pots for the plantation he served, and on the necks of the pots he inscribed words: his name, biblical verses, and couplets. Gates used the writings from these pots to create a choral piece, with lyrics in call-and-response form, with Dave’s prompts and Gates’s replies. The installation consists of speakers and a turntable, both made of porcelain, which play a recording of the choral piece, titled A Closer Walk with Thee. For the exhibition Gates will perform this piece live with a Houston choir. It is a tribute to Dave the Potter’s legacy and to African American traditions of worship and song. The ceramic speakers and turntable become a kind of altar, composed of the same materials as the pots, to present these songs of praise to Dave the Potter’s memory and

T H E A S T E R

the many unrepresented and unknown experiences of so many slaves.

GATES

Theaster Gates Temple Performance in the artist’s installation, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, 2009* Materials: wooden conveyor pallets, public address system, musical instruments, DJ gear

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Theaster Gates creates, in his own words, “sculpture, performance, space, and friendship.” In Dave: A Legendary Black Clay Superhero and A Closer Walk with Thee (both 2010), Gates provides a stage for his own music inspired by the writings of Dave the Potter. Dave the Potter, or Dave Drake, was a slave born in South Carolina at the beginning of the nineteenth century. He made pots for the plantation he served, and on the necks of the pots he inscribed words: his name, biblical verses, and couplets. Gates used the writings from these pots to create a choral piece, with lyrics in call-and-response form, with Dave’s prompts and Gates’s replies. The installation consists of speakers and a turntable, both made of porcelain, which play a recording of the choral piece, titled A Closer Walk with Thee. For the exhibition Gates will perform this piece live with a Houston choir. It is a tribute to Dave the Potter’s legacy and to African American traditions of worship and song. The ceramic speakers and turntable become a kind of altar, composed of the same materials as the pots, to present these songs of praise to Dave the Potter’s memory and

T H E A S T E R

the many unrepresented and unknown experiences of so many slaves.

GATES

Theaster Gates Temple Performance in the artist’s installation, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, 2009* Materials: wooden conveyor pallets, public address system, musical instruments, DJ gear

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Theaster Gates The artist working on a large hand-formed clay vessel inspired by Dave the Potter, 2010 Right: The artist working on Serial Whyte Speaker, 2010 Location: Kohler Co. Pottery, Iron, and Brass Foundries, Sheboygan, Wisconsin

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Theaster Gates The artist working on a large hand-formed clay vessel inspired by Dave the Potter, 2010 Right: The artist working on Serial Whyte Speaker, 2010 Location: Kohler Co. Pottery, Iron, and Brass Foundries, Sheboygan, Wisconsin

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Cynthia Giachetti’s work integrates objects from the many post–Hurricane Katrina junk shops in New Orleans with her own handmade ceramics. Items like rusted forks, spoons, knives, finials, and chandeliers are transformed from detritus into elegant keepsakes.

Often her ceramic pieces are floral or incorporate lace, reflecting nature and paying homage to the Victorian aesthetic so prevalent in New Orleans. The found objects are evidence of loss and destruction, and her flowers, bulbs, lace, and dragonflies serve as signs of hope and renewal. Still life (2010) becomes a memento mori, complete with an offering of flowers. This piece invokes a spiritual reverence for death and a sense of gratitude for what exists and what can be experienced.

At the close of the exhibition the flowers will be given to audience members in the performance Flower Cynthia Giachetti Sketchbook drawing for still life, 2010* Graphite and charcoal on paper 16 x 12 inches Diagram for a work in the current exhibition

C Y N T H I A

Ceremony (2010), attesting both to the transitory nature of life and to the permanence of memories, indelible once shared.

Cynthia Giachetti Lily Wall, 2007 (detail)* Porcelain and kiln-fired handmade lace 36 x 30 x 36 inches Collection Stephen Wilson

Overleaf: Alight, 2008 (detail)*

Porcelain, steel, with Katrina-rusted, 18th-century French tole chandelier 30 x 24 x 24 inches

GIACHETTI

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Cynthia Giachetti’s work integrates objects from the many post–Hurricane Katrina junk shops in New Orleans with her own handmade ceramics. Items like rusted forks, spoons, knives, finials, and chandeliers are transformed from detritus into elegant keepsakes.

Often her ceramic pieces are floral or incorporate lace, reflecting nature and paying homage to the Victorian aesthetic so prevalent in New Orleans. The found objects are evidence of loss and destruction, and her flowers, bulbs, lace, and dragonflies serve as signs of hope and renewal. Still life (2010) becomes a memento mori, complete with an offering of flowers. This piece invokes a spiritual reverence for death and a sense of gratitude for what exists and what can be experienced.

At the close of the exhibition the flowers will be given to audience members in the performance Flower Cynthia Giachetti Sketchbook drawing for still life, 2010* Graphite and charcoal on paper 16 x 12 inches Diagram for a work in the current exhibition

C Y N T H I A

Ceremony (2010), attesting both to the transitory nature of life and to the permanence of memories, indelible once shared.

Cynthia Giachetti Lily Wall, 2007 (detail)* Porcelain and kiln-fired handmade lace 36 x 30 x 36 inches Collection Stephen Wilson

Overleaf: Alight, 2008 (detail)*

Porcelain, steel, with Katrina-rusted, 18th-century French tole chandelier 30 x 24 x 24 inches

GIACHETTI

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Ryan Gothrup’s glass practice ranges from traditional vessels to sculptural objects to performance art. For his video Diversion (2007), Gothrup made multiple glass basketballs, indistinguishable from conventional ones, which are shown lined up on a ball rack. He begins to throw the basketballs into a hoop. The viewer is not aware that some of the basketballs are glass until a ball shatters upon impact. Orb after orb is thrown, and as they break at the hoop or pass through only to shatter on the ground, one is continually startled by the sound. The act exploits both the inherent discomfort and fear present when glass is about to break and the mischievous fascination of watching it happen. The bystander in the film does not share the curiosity that a detached viewer is allowed. He intervenes, to the point of physical aggression, motivated by his concern about the consequences of broken glass in a public place. His anxiety attests to the emotions often present in watching performance art. Gothrup’s performance questions notions of value in art, suggesting that challenging such traditional ideas is now as important as upholding them once was.

R Y A N

GOTHRUP

Ryan Gothrup Diversion, 2007 Hand-blown glass basketball, rubber basketballs, metal rack Basketballs: 30 inches circumference Rack: 36 x 48 x 12 inches

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Ryan Gothrup’s glass practice ranges from traditional vessels to sculptural objects to performance art. For his video Diversion (2007), Gothrup made multiple glass basketballs, indistinguishable from conventional ones, which are shown lined up on a ball rack. He begins to throw the basketballs into a hoop. The viewer is not aware that some of the basketballs are glass until a ball shatters upon impact. Orb after orb is thrown, and as they break at the hoop or pass through only to shatter on the ground, one is continually startled by the sound. The act exploits both the inherent discomfort and fear present when glass is about to break and the mischievous fascination of watching it happen. The bystander in the film does not share the curiosity that a detached viewer is allowed. He intervenes, to the point of physical aggression, motivated by his concern about the consequences of broken glass in a public place. His anxiety attests to the emotions often present in watching performance art. Gothrup’s performance questions notions of value in art, suggesting that challenging such traditional ideas is now as important as upholding them once was.

R Y A N

GOTHRUP

Ryan Gothrup Diversion, 2007 Hand-blown glass basketball, rubber basketballs, metal rack Basketballs: 30 inches circumference Rack: 36 x 48 x 12 inches

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Ryan Gothrup Diversion, 2007 Hand-blown glass basketball, rubber basketballs, metal rack Basketballs: 30 inches circumference Rack: 36 x 48 x 12 inches

Opposite: Stills from Diversion, 2007 Digital video, color, sound Duration: 7:08 minutes

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Ryan Gothrup Diversion, 2007 Hand-blown glass basketball, rubber basketballs, metal rack Basketballs: 30 inches circumference Rack: 36 x 48 x 12 inches

Opposite: Stills from Diversion, 2007 Digital video, color, sound Duration: 7:08 minutes

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Knitting entered Sabrina Gschwandtner’s creative practice as a therapeutic tool, offering a break from the dense reading in her undergraduate semiotics program.

Although her academic focus was semiotics and film, knitting slowly made its way to the forefront of her practice. Considering the semiotics of the knotted thread, Gschwandtner began to focus on both the historical and the contemporary implications of knitting.

In a commodity-based world, the handcrafted object becomes a political stance against commercialization, mass production, and a desensitized consumer base.

Often her exhibitions include knitting circles in which audience members are recruited to knit. This collaborative process offers participants the experience of making something and calls attention to the value intrinsic in the time it takes to do so. Crochet Film (2004/2010) is also a testament to time and the handmade. Eighty feet of 16mm film hold a recording of Gschwandtner crocheting an eighty-foot replica of the strip of film out of yarn. The two are shown next to each other while the actual film is projected. Crocheting the eighty-foot strip took more than ten hours, while the film lasts less than three minutes. Each process informs the other: frames per second become knots per second, both sequential and both dependent on time and repetition.

S A B R I N A

GSCHWANDTNER

Sabrina Gschwandtner Crochet Film, 2004/2010 Wool, 16mm film, 16mm projector, wood, plastic Dimensions variable Duration: 2:14 minutes (looped) Installation view, SculptureCenter, New York, 2004

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Knitting entered Sabrina Gschwandtner’s creative practice as a therapeutic tool, offering a break from the dense reading in her undergraduate semiotics program.

Although her academic focus was semiotics and film, knitting slowly made its way to the forefront of her practice. Considering the semiotics of the knotted thread, Gschwandtner began to focus on both the historical and the contemporary implications of knitting.

In a commodity-based world, the handcrafted object becomes a political stance against commercialization, mass production, and a desensitized consumer base.

Often her exhibitions include knitting circles in which audience members are recruited to knit. This collaborative process offers participants the experience of making something and calls attention to the value intrinsic in the time it takes to do so. Crochet Film (2004/2010) is also a testament to time and the handmade. Eighty feet of 16mm film hold a recording of Gschwandtner crocheting an eighty-foot replica of the strip of film out of yarn. The two are shown next to each other while the actual film is projected. Crocheting the eighty-foot strip took more than ten hours, while the film lasts less than three minutes. Each process informs the other: frames per second become knots per second, both sequential and both dependent on time and repetition.

S A B R I N A

GSCHWANDTNER

Sabrina Gschwandtner Crochet Film, 2004/2010 Wool, 16mm film, 16mm projector, wood, plastic Dimensions variable Duration: 2:14 minutes (looped) Installation view, SculptureCenter, New York, 2004

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Sabrina Gschwandtner Crochet Film, 2004/2010 Wool, 16mm film, 16mm projector, wood, plastic Dimensions variable Duration: 2:14 minutes (looped) Installation view, SculptureCenter, New York, 2004

Still from Crochet Film, 2004/2010

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Sabrina Gschwandtner Crochet Film, 2004/2010 Wool, 16mm film, 16mm projector, wood, plastic Dimensions variable Duration: 2:14 minutes (looped) Installation view, SculptureCenter, New York, 2004

Still from Crochet Film, 2004/2010

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Lauren Kalman’s work investigates relationships among body image, adornment, material worth, and social expectations. Objects made out of gold, silver, copper, and semiprecious and precious gems are placed on the body in such a way as to resemble growths and blemishes or are used to replicate or adorn a part of the body where jewelry is dangerous or ludicrous.

Kalman creates the objects and then photographs a model wearing them. Her Hard Wear series (2006) includes strung pearls for the teeth, a jewel cluster for the nostril, and gold plating for the ear canal, gums, and tongue. In Tongue Gilding (cover), a bright golden tongue is shown protruding from the artist’s mouth, as she salivates from the effort of wearing the gold. Gold Duct replicates the inside corner of the eye in gold, covering the area it mimics. The model, the artist herself, is clearly suffering, her eye red and watering.

Evidence of suffering is also present in Necklace and Bracelet, in which the wearer is shown both with the piece on and then with it removed, the skin inflamed.

The works critique the garishness of excessive ornamentation and the sacrifices made to accommodate unrealistic standards of beauty.

L A U R E N

KALMAN

Lauren Kalman Hard Wear (Pearls), 2006 Digital print laminated on acrylic 32 x 23 inches

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Lauren Kalman’s work investigates relationships among body image, adornment, material worth, and social expectations. Objects made out of gold, silver, copper, and semiprecious and precious gems are placed on the body in such a way as to resemble growths and blemishes or are used to replicate or adorn a part of the body where jewelry is dangerous or ludicrous.

Kalman creates the objects and then photographs a model wearing them. Her Hard Wear series (2006) includes strung pearls for the teeth, a jewel cluster for the nostril, and gold plating for the ear canal, gums, and tongue. In Tongue Gilding (cover), a bright golden tongue is shown protruding from the artist’s mouth, as she salivates from the effort of wearing the gold. Gold Duct replicates the inside corner of the eye in gold, covering the area it mimics. The model, the artist herself, is clearly suffering, her eye red and watering.

Evidence of suffering is also present in Necklace and Bracelet, in which the wearer is shown both with the piece on and then with it removed, the skin inflamed.

The works critique the garishness of excessive ornamentation and the sacrifices made to accommodate unrealistic standards of beauty.

L A U R E N

KALMAN

Lauren Kalman Hard Wear (Pearls), 2006 Digital print laminated on acrylic 32 x 23 inches

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Lauren Kalman

Lauren Kalman Hard Wear (Digital Gem), 2006 Digital print laminated on acrylic 30 x 23 inches

Hard Wear (Canal Caps), 2006 (detail) Digital print laminated on acrylic 30 x 23 inches

Hard Wear (Aural Gem), 2006 Digital print laminated on acrylic 30 x 23 inches

Hard Wear (Aural, Oral, Digital Gems), 2006 Gold-plated electroformed copper, 3 pieces, 3 x 3 x 3 inches each

Hard Wear (Canal Caps), 2006 Gold-plated electroformed copper 2 pieces, 1 x 1 x 1/2 inches each

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Lauren Kalman

Lauren Kalman Hard Wear (Digital Gem), 2006 Digital print laminated on acrylic 30 x 23 inches

Hard Wear (Canal Caps), 2006 (detail) Digital print laminated on acrylic 30 x 23 inches

Hard Wear (Aural Gem), 2006 Digital print laminated on acrylic 30 x 23 inches

Hard Wear (Aural, Oral, Digital Gems), 2006 Gold-plated electroformed copper, 3 pieces, 3 x 3 x 3 inches each

Hard Wear (Canal Caps), 2006 Gold-plated electroformed copper 2 pieces, 1 x 1 x 1/2 inches each

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Christy Matson is a fiber artist working in sound and performance. Her textiles, woven on both hand-operated and industrial Jacquard looms, appear to be traditional tapestries. For Sonic Structure I (2006–10), however, Matson combines natural and artificial fibers with copper threads that are connected to electrical circuits. The tapestry becomes an antenna and, when amplified, makes sounds according to the changes in electromagnetic frequencies. The frequencies change as a result of touch. Though seemingly random, the textile is actually woven using a pattern made by measuring the frequencies of other sounds. Matson is able to create and use this pattern or matrix according to the number of warp (lengthwise) threads on her Jacquard loom. The sounds made, however, are completely up to the participant. Different sounds are created according to the pressure, movement, and surface of the instrument or body part used. The piece not only mixes the digital with the handmade but also satisfies the viewer’s yearning for touch and engagement with art. It is dependent on the viewer to be

C H R I S T Y

activated, to exist as intended. This relational approach to art making enables the viewer to connect to the work both physically and psychologically.

Christy Matson Above and opposite: Sonic Structure I, 2006/10 Hand-Jacquard-woven cotton and copper, single-channel interactive sound 29 x 144 inches Installation view, San Francisco Museum of Craft + Design

MATSON

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Christy Matson is a fiber artist working in sound and performance. Her textiles, woven on both hand-operated and industrial Jacquard looms, appear to be traditional tapestries. For Sonic Structure I (2006–10), however, Matson combines natural and artificial fibers with copper threads that are connected to electrical circuits. The tapestry becomes an antenna and, when amplified, makes sounds according to the changes in electromagnetic frequencies. The frequencies change as a result of touch. Though seemingly random, the textile is actually woven using a pattern made by measuring the frequencies of other sounds. Matson is able to create and use this pattern or matrix according to the number of warp (lengthwise) threads on her Jacquard loom. The sounds made, however, are completely up to the participant. Different sounds are created according to the pressure, movement, and surface of the instrument or body part used. The piece not only mixes the digital with the handmade but also satisfies the viewer’s yearning for touch and engagement with art. It is dependent on the viewer to be

C H R I S T Y

activated, to exist as intended. This relational approach to art making enables the viewer to connect to the work both physically and psychologically.

Christy Matson Above and opposite: Sonic Structure I, 2006/10 Hand-Jacquard-woven cotton and copper, single-channel interactive sound 29 x 144 inches Installation view, San Francisco Museum of Craft + Design

MATSON

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Christy Matson Sonic Structure I, 2006/10 (detail and installation view, San Francisco Museum of Craft + Design)

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Christy Matson Sonic Structure I, 2006/10 (detail and installation view, San Francisco Museum of Craft + Design)

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James Melchert came out of the West Coast ceramics movement led by his instructor Peter Voulkos. Voulkos and his students were the first American ceramists to break away from traditional European- and Asian-style pottery. Their abstract, asymmetrical forms; expressive lines; and abandonment of function forever changed ceramics. Putting the conceptual ahead of the functional, Melchert’s own work has made significant contributions to the medium. In his performance Changes (1972), he did with clay what the abstract expressionists did with paint, investigating the body’s relationship with the medium. Melchert had several participants immerse their heads in a vat of clay slip and then sit still while it dried. The event was filmed during its original occurrence and will be repeated for the current exhibition. The process is meditative; everything the participants experience originates from their bodJames Melchert Above and opposite: Documentation of Melchert’s performance Changes, 1972 Black-and-white photographs by Mieke H. Hille 10 x 8 inches each

ies. All they can hear is the sound of their own heartbeats, swallowing, and breathing. Seeing the clay drying, faces twitching, small bits of clay-filmed skin starting to peek through, the viewer worries about the participants’ comfort and well-being. This concern connects the viewer empathically to the participants’ experience. Reflecting on a medium that is highly dependent on the hands, strength, and movement of the artist, the performance collapses the separation between body and clay, artist and object.

J A M E S

MELCHERT

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James Melchert came out of the West Coast ceramics movement led by his instructor Peter Voulkos. Voulkos and his students were the first American ceramists to break away from traditional European- and Asian-style pottery. Their abstract, asymmetrical forms; expressive lines; and abandonment of function forever changed ceramics. Putting the conceptual ahead of the functional, Melchert’s own work has made significant contributions to the medium. In his performance Changes (1972), he did with clay what the abstract expressionists did with paint, investigating the body’s relationship with the medium. Melchert had several participants immerse their heads in a vat of clay slip and then sit still while it dried. The event was filmed during its original occurrence and will be repeated for the current exhibition. The process is meditative; everything the participants experience originates from their bodJames Melchert Above and opposite: Documentation of Melchert’s performance Changes, 1972 Black-and-white photographs by Mieke H. Hille 10 x 8 inches each

ies. All they can hear is the sound of their own heartbeats, swallowing, and breathing. Seeing the clay drying, faces twitching, small bits of clay-filmed skin starting to peek through, the viewer worries about the participants’ comfort and well-being. This concern connects the viewer empathically to the participants’ experience. Reflecting on a medium that is highly dependent on the hands, strength, and movement of the artist, the performance collapses the separation between body and clay, artist and object.

J A M E S

MELCHERT

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James Melchert Documentation of Melchert’s performance Changes, 1972 Black-and-white photographs by Mieke H. Hille 10 x 8 inches each

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James Melchert Documentation of Melchert’s performance Changes, 1972 Black-and-white photographs by Mieke H. Hille 10 x 8 inches each

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Yuka Otani applies glassmaking techniques to transparent materials such as water, sugar, and light. These materials are, like molten glass, in a state of flux and can be manipulated. In fact, as she says, “they are poised for change.” She explores issues relating to glass but challenges its traditional role in the creation of permanent, decorative, often functional objects.

Otani has attributed her interest in unstable materials to her experience with economic instability, having spent her adolescence in Japan during the country’s “lost decade.” She sees parallels between glass bubbles and economic bubbles. For Sweet Vessels (2005–9), she either casts molten sugar or blows it as glass is blown, forming glasses, goblets, vases, and other tableware.

Objects used for consuming food and beverages are themselves edible. Over time the sugar becomes cloudy with humidity and starts to disintegrate. These pieces forfeit permanence for transience, stability for change.

They are meant to expire, either through consumption or as a result of their own organic deterioration.

Y U K A

OTANI

Yuka Otani Sweet Vessels, 2005* Hand-blown granulated sugar, corn syrup Dimensions variable

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Yuka Otani applies glassmaking techniques to transparent materials such as water, sugar, and light. These materials are, like molten glass, in a state of flux and can be manipulated. In fact, as she says, “they are poised for change.” She explores issues relating to glass but challenges its traditional role in the creation of permanent, decorative, often functional objects.

Otani has attributed her interest in unstable materials to her experience with economic instability, having spent her adolescence in Japan during the country’s “lost decade.” She sees parallels between glass bubbles and economic bubbles. For Sweet Vessels (2005–9), she either casts molten sugar or blows it as glass is blown, forming glasses, goblets, vases, and other tableware.

Objects used for consuming food and beverages are themselves edible. Over time the sugar becomes cloudy with humidity and starts to disintegrate. These pieces forfeit permanence for transience, stability for change.

They are meant to expire, either through consumption or as a result of their own organic deterioration.

Y U K A

OTANI

Yuka Otani Sweet Vessels, 2005* Hand-blown granulated sugar, corn syrup Dimensions variable

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Yuka Otani Sweet Vessels, 2009 Cast granulated sugar, corn syrup, food coloring Dimensions variable

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Yuka Otani Sweet Vessels, 2009 Cast granulated sugar, corn syrup, food coloring Dimensions variable

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Sheila Pepe is an installation artist currently working in fiber. Her crocheted installations pay tribute to, and participate in, an ongoing feminist dialogue in contemporary art surrounding techniques traditionally associated with women. The crocheted knot, in this context, takes on political implications. Pepe’s installations also make a poignant art historical statement, reflecting the aesthetic of Abstract Expressionism, a notoriously maledominated genre. Her recent body of work, including Common Sense II (2010), a site-specific installation created for the current exhibition, expresses her realization that it is not enough for these impressive roomsize installations merely to have existed. They must become part of people’s daily lives. Over the duration of the installation, Pepe’s sculpture will slowly be unraveled by museum visitors, who are invited to use her yarn and string to knit their own functional pieces: cozies, mittens, pot holders, scarves, and so on. Conceived as art, the piece is also a sacrifice for a larger sphere of creativity, community, and adherence to tradition. It encourages the continuation of knitting and crocheting and does so in a communal setting, similar to historical women’s knitting and quilting circles. In her generosity, Pepe is perpetuating these traditions while challenging canonical ideas relating to permanence and authorship.

S H E I L A

PEPE

Sheila Pepe Mind the Gap, 2005* Shoelaces, nautical towline, paint Installation view, University Gallery, University of Massachusetts, Amherst

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Sheila Pepe is an installation artist currently working in fiber. Her crocheted installations pay tribute to, and participate in, an ongoing feminist dialogue in contemporary art surrounding techniques traditionally associated with women. The crocheted knot, in this context, takes on political implications. Pepe’s installations also make a poignant art historical statement, reflecting the aesthetic of Abstract Expressionism, a notoriously maledominated genre. Her recent body of work, including Common Sense II (2010), a site-specific installation created for the current exhibition, expresses her realization that it is not enough for these impressive roomsize installations merely to have existed. They must become part of people’s daily lives. Over the duration of the installation, Pepe’s sculpture will slowly be unraveled by museum visitors, who are invited to use her yarn and string to knit their own functional pieces: cozies, mittens, pot holders, scarves, and so on. Conceived as art, the piece is also a sacrifice for a larger sphere of creativity, community, and adherence to tradition. It encourages the continuation of knitting and crocheting and does so in a communal setting, similar to historical women’s knitting and quilting circles. In her generosity, Pepe is perpetuating these traditions while challenging canonical ideas relating to permanence and authorship.

S H E I L A

PEPE

Sheila Pepe Mind the Gap, 2005* Shoelaces, nautical towline, paint Installation view, University Gallery, University of Massachusetts, Amherst

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Sheila Pepe Common Sense, 2009* Crocheted yarn Dimensions variable Installation at testsite, a project of Fluent~Collaborative, Austin. Pepe’s crocheted yarn networks were deinstalled and constructively reused by visitors.

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Sheila Pepe Common Sense, 2009* Crocheted yarn Dimensions variable Installation at testsite, a project of Fluent~Collaborative, Austin. Pepe’s crocheted yarn networks were deinstalled and constructively reused by visitors.

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Michael Rea is a sculptor who builds objects out of wood, burlap, and rope. Influenced by movies and pop culture, he explores themes relating to space, war, the aquatic, wood tools, and rock and roll. He has made a war suit that turns a grown man into a kind of wooden tank, complete with sword and battering-ram fist.

Although boyish in theme, these objects require significant woodworking skills, as most of the pieces are meant to be worn, used, or played with. Wood Load-In (2004) is a set of musical instruments commonly used to play rock and roll: guitars, drums, keyboard, amplifiers, and so on. Everything has been carved or built from wood, with electrical cords made from rope. It is the ultimate air guitar/drum/keyboard/cowbell playground. Rea and his band of participants have used the equipment in performances of IYell Because I Care (2005), which is actually a karaoke/pretend performance of songs like Cheap Trick’s “Dream Police.”

Although the humor of such performances may be misconstrued as a lack of seriousness, the quality of construction, immense scale, and clarity of concept evident in Rea’s work

M I C H A E L

REA

make a statement in support of playfulness and imagination, suggesting that it may be more pertinent to question the absence of humor.

Michael Rea Above and opposite: Wood Load-In, 2004 (details) Carved wood, burlap, rope Dimensions variable

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Michael Rea is a sculptor who builds objects out of wood, burlap, and rope. Influenced by movies and pop culture, he explores themes relating to space, war, the aquatic, wood tools, and rock and roll. He has made a war suit that turns a grown man into a kind of wooden tank, complete with sword and battering-ram fist.

Although boyish in theme, these objects require significant woodworking skills, as most of the pieces are meant to be worn, used, or played with. Wood Load-In (2004) is a set of musical instruments commonly used to play rock and roll: guitars, drums, keyboard, amplifiers, and so on. Everything has been carved or built from wood, with electrical cords made from rope. It is the ultimate air guitar/drum/keyboard/cowbell playground. Rea and his band of participants have used the equipment in performances of IYell Because I Care (2005), which is actually a karaoke/pretend performance of songs like Cheap Trick’s “Dream Police.”

Although the humor of such performances may be misconstrued as a lack of seriousness, the quality of construction, immense scale, and clarity of concept evident in Rea’s work

M I C H A E L

REA

make a statement in support of playfulness and imagination, suggesting that it may be more pertinent to question the absence of humor.

Michael Rea Above and opposite: Wood Load-In, 2004 (details) Carved wood, burlap, rope Dimensions variable

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Michael Rea Left: Stills from I Yell Because I Care, 2005 Digital video, color, sound Duration: 4:35 minutes Opposite top (detail) and bottom (installation view): Wood Load-In, 2004 Carved wood, burlap, rope Dimensions variable

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Michael Rea Left: Stills from I Yell Because I Care, 2005 Digital video, color, sound Duration: 4:35 minutes Opposite top (detail) and bottom (installation view): Wood Load-In, 2004 Carved wood, burlap, rope Dimensions variable

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Anne Wilson Color palette for Wind-Up: Walking the Warp, Houston, 2010* Preparatory material for performance/ sculpture presented in the current exhibition

Anne Wilson creates sculptures, drawings, video animations, and installations from fibers. Wind-Up: Walking the Warp was first performed in Chicago in 2008, and a new version will be created for the current exhibition.

In the work, she and a team of participants walk fibers around a forty-yard-long zigzag weaving warp on a seventeen-by-seven-foot frame. In cultures in which textiles are still made by hand, without the use of mechanical looms, “walking the warp” is a standard practice.

Establishing a warp is the first step in weaving, providing the structure for the textile. The “weft” is woven through the warp, and this creates the right angles needed in any woven piece. In Wind-Up, the walker wraps a spool of thread around the warp poles, walking in and out between the poles, while two others secure the thread’s location on the poles. It took nine participants six days to complete the entire warp at the original performance.

In Houston six performers will create the work during two six-hour segments. The process is meditative, similar

A N N E

to a walking meditation. The end result, though practical as a foundation for woven fabric, is a brilliant piece of sculpture. Combining the grace and elegance of a postminimalist aesthetic with vibrantly colored thread, the finished warp possesses its own resonance, evoking the rich metaphoric associations of weaving—with allusions to family, protection, and social structure—which run deep in our cultural understanding.

WILSON

Sara Rabinowitz, drawing of frame plan for Anne Wilson’s Wind-Up: Walking the Warp, 2008

Anne Wilson Wind-Up: Walking the Warp, 2008 Practice sessions at Rhona Hoffman Gallery, Chicago

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Anne Wilson Color palette for Wind-Up: Walking the Warp, Houston, 2010* Preparatory material for performance/ sculpture presented in the current exhibition

Anne Wilson creates sculptures, drawings, video animations, and installations from fibers. Wind-Up: Walking the Warp was first performed in Chicago in 2008, and a new version will be created for the current exhibition.

In the work, she and a team of participants walk fibers around a forty-yard-long zigzag weaving warp on a seventeen-by-seven-foot frame. In cultures in which textiles are still made by hand, without the use of mechanical looms, “walking the warp” is a standard practice.

Establishing a warp is the first step in weaving, providing the structure for the textile. The “weft” is woven through the warp, and this creates the right angles needed in any woven piece. In Wind-Up, the walker wraps a spool of thread around the warp poles, walking in and out between the poles, while two others secure the thread’s location on the poles. It took nine participants six days to complete the entire warp at the original performance.

In Houston six performers will create the work during two six-hour segments. The process is meditative, similar

A N N E

to a walking meditation. The end result, though practical as a foundation for woven fabric, is a brilliant piece of sculpture. Combining the grace and elegance of a postminimalist aesthetic with vibrantly colored thread, the finished warp possesses its own resonance, evoking the rich metaphoric associations of weaving—with allusions to family, protection, and social structure—which run deep in our cultural understanding.

WILSON

Sara Rabinowitz, drawing of frame plan for Anne Wilson’s Wind-Up: Walking the Warp, 2008

Anne Wilson Wind-Up: Walking the Warp, 2008 Practice sessions at Rhona Hoffman Gallery, Chicago

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Anne Wilson Wind-Up: Walking the Warp, 2008 Practice session (top) and performance/ sculpture (bottom and opposite) at Rhona Hoffman Gallery, Chicago

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Anne Wilson Wind-Up: Walking the Warp, 2008 Practice session (top) and performance/ sculpture (bottom and opposite) at Rhona Hoffman Gallery, Chicago

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Saya Woolfalk is a sculptor and installation and performance artist. Her work is rooted in ideologies that use play and masquerade to interpret larger cultural phenomena. No Place (from the word utopia, which directly translates from Greek as “no place”), a project that has been evolving since 2006, began as a set of drawings and paintings of an imaginary world set in the future’s future, whose inhabitants are half plant and half human and change colors throughout their lives. In the video Ethnography of No Place (2008), different aspects of existence are explored through animation, performance, and narration: birth, relationships, death, and so on. Self and Landscape, the second chapter in Ethnography of No Place, describes, among other things, sexuality and reproduction.

Although the landscape is made of brightly colored plush flowers, pods, and leaves, the mood is reverent.

Woolfalk handcrafts all aspects of her futuristic tableaux, then works with trained dancers to choreograph their movements. This work speaks to many aspects of culture, including the environment, relationships, and the way we view death and dying. No Place is a utopia, and this “documentary” seems to be partially a sneak peek and a warning so that we do not prevent ourselves from realizing this world.

S A Y A

WOOLFALK

Saya Woolfalk Ethnography of No Place, 2008 Production still for video

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Saya Woolfalk is a sculptor and installation and performance artist. Her work is rooted in ideologies that use play and masquerade to interpret larger cultural phenomena. No Place (from the word utopia, which directly translates from Greek as “no place”), a project that has been evolving since 2006, began as a set of drawings and paintings of an imaginary world set in the future’s future, whose inhabitants are half plant and half human and change colors throughout their lives. In the video Ethnography of No Place (2008), different aspects of existence are explored through animation, performance, and narration: birth, relationships, death, and so on. Self and Landscape, the second chapter in Ethnography of No Place, describes, among other things, sexuality and reproduction.

Although the landscape is made of brightly colored plush flowers, pods, and leaves, the mood is reverent.

Woolfalk handcrafts all aspects of her futuristic tableaux, then works with trained dancers to choreograph their movements. This work speaks to many aspects of culture, including the environment, relationships, and the way we view death and dying. No Place is a utopia, and this “documentary” seems to be partially a sneak peek and a warning so that we do not prevent ourselves from realizing this world.

S A Y A

WOOLFALK

Saya Woolfalk Ethnography of No Place, 2008 Production still for video

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Saya Woolfalk Ethnography of No Place, 2008 Production stills for video

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Saya Woolfalk Ethnography of No Place, 2008 Production stills for video

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Bohyun Yoon is a glass artist working in performance and installation. His work is concerned with contemporary nomadic culture and how we relate to one another. Yoon uses glass—its sound and resonance— as a communicative tool. Glass Helmet Instrument (2002) is a blown-glass headpiece shaped to create sounds similar to those made by a water-filled wine glass. The instrument is placed on the head and filled with water. The wearer is then able to rub the sides and rim of the helmet and expel water from the spout to achieve different sound variations. The sounds are dependent on the wearer’s hand shape, head shape, pressure, and movement and are thus unique to each person. This piece is an investigation not only of the resonant properties of glass but also of the participant’s intuitive musical tendencies. The video Sound of Glass Instrument (2004) documents the way the different players use the helmet and the different sounds that are generated. The sounds are diverse and surprisingly pleasant, proving the helmet’s ability to evoke a unique and beautiful sound from each player.

B O H Y U N

YOON

Bohyun Yoon Glass Helmet Instrument, 2002 Blown glass 7 7/8 x 113/4 x 113/4 inches

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Bohyun Yoon is a glass artist working in performance and installation. His work is concerned with contemporary nomadic culture and how we relate to one another. Yoon uses glass—its sound and resonance— as a communicative tool. Glass Helmet Instrument (2002) is a blown-glass headpiece shaped to create sounds similar to those made by a water-filled wine glass. The instrument is placed on the head and filled with water. The wearer is then able to rub the sides and rim of the helmet and expel water from the spout to achieve different sound variations. The sounds are dependent on the wearer’s hand shape, head shape, pressure, and movement and are thus unique to each person. This piece is an investigation not only of the resonant properties of glass but also of the participant’s intuitive musical tendencies. The video Sound of Glass Instrument (2004) documents the way the different players use the helmet and the different sounds that are generated. The sounds are diverse and surprisingly pleasant, proving the helmet’s ability to evoke a unique and beautiful sound from each player.

B O H Y U N

YOON

Bohyun Yoon Glass Helmet Instrument, 2002 Blown glass 7 7/8 x 113/4 x 113/4 inches

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Bohyun Yoon Stills from Sound of Glass Instrument, 2004 Digital video, color, sound Duration: 4 minutes

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Bohyun Yoon Stills from Sound of Glass Instrument, 2004 Digital video, color, sound Duration: 4 minutes

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Catalogue of the Exhibition Dimensions are given in the following order: height, width, depth.

B Team Spontaneous Combustion II, 1997 Digital video, color, sound Duration: 6:57 minutes Courtesy Zesty Meyers and R 20th Century Gallery, New York Tricks, 1998–99 Digital video, color, sound Duration: 10:28 minutes Courtesy Zesty Meyers and R 20th Century Gallery, New York

Conrad Bakker Untitled Project: Book-of-the-Month Club, 2010 Carved wood, paint 6 works, approx. 6 x 4 x 2 inches each Courtesy the artist and Lora Reynolds Gallery, Austin

Nick Cave Invasion, 2008 Digital video projection Duration: 90 minutes Courtesy the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York Untitled (Soundsuits), 2009–10 Fabric, beads, and mixed media 5 works, 106 x 36 x 28 inches each Courtesy the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York

Cat Chow Not for Sale, 2002 1,000 donated U.S. dollar bills, shredded; invisible thread; fishing line; glue; list of 1,000 sponsors 72 x 24 x 24 inches Courtesy the artist Untitled (new work), 2010 Media and dimensions to be determined Courtesy the artist

Sonya Clark Onigi 13, 1997 Thread, cloth 10 x 14 x 14 inches Courtesy the artist Crown, 1998 Thread, cloth 10 x 14 x 14 inches Courtesy the artist

Dryad, 1998 Thread, cloth 10 x 14 x 14 inches Collection James Dozier Fingers, 1998 Thread, cloth, crochet 10 x 14 x 14 inches Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, Wisconsin. Purchase, through Rudolph and Louise Langer Fund Hemi, 1998 Thread, cloth 4 x 8 x 8 inches Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, Wisconsin. Purchase, through Rudolph and Louise Langer Fund Spider, 1998 Thread, cloth 4 x 8 x 8 inches Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, Wisconsin. Purchase, through Rudolph and Louise Langer Fund Triad, 1998 Thread, cloth 4 x 8 x 8 inches Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, Wisconsin. Purchase, through Rudolph and Louise Langer Fund Unum, 1998 Thread, cloth 10 x 14 x 14 inches Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, Wisconsin. Purchase, through Rudolph and Louise Langer Fund Pepperhead, 1999 Straw, pompoms 10 x 14 x 14 inches Courtesy the artist

Gabriel Craig The Pro Bono Jeweler, 2008–10 Digital video documentation of performance/public intervention Duration: 5:46 minutes Courtesy the artist The Gospel according to Craft, 2009 Digital video documentation of performance/public intervention Duration: 5:25 minutes Courtesy the artist

Theaster Gates

Hard Wear (Blemish Gilding), 2006 Gold, adhesive skin, hair, glass jar 2 x 2 x 4 inches overall Courtesy the artist

A Closer Walk with Thee, 2010 Performance Courtesy the artist and Kavi Gupta Gallery, Chicago

Hard Wear (Blemish Gilding), 2006 Digital print laminated on acrylic 28 x 23 inches Courtesy the artist

Dave: A Legendary Black Clay Superhero, 2010 Porcelain speakers, turntable, audio system Speakers: 24 x 15 inches each Turntable: 20 x 20 inches Courtesy the artist and Kavi Gupta Gallery, Chicago

Hard Wear (Bracelet), 2006 Digital print laminated on acrylic 36 x 23 inches Courtesy the artist

Cynthia Giachetti Flower Ceremony, 2010 Performance Courtesy the artist still life, 2010 Fired clay, metal, electrical wiring, bulbs 36 x 30 x 36 inches Courtesy the artist

Ryan Gothrup Diversion, 2007 Hand-blown glass basketball, rubber basketballs, metal rack Basketballs: 30 inches circumference Rack: 36 x 48 x 12 inches Courtesy the artist Diversion, 2007 Digital video, color, sound Duration: 7:08 minutes Courtesy the artist

Sabrina Gschwandtner Crochet Film, 2004/2010 Wool, 16mm film, 16mm projector, wood, plastic Dimensions variable Duration: 2:14 minutes (looped) Courtesy the artist

Lauren Kalman

Hard Wear (Canal Caps), 2006 Gold-plated electroformed copper 2 pieces, 1 x 1 x 1/2 inches each Courtesy the artist Hard Wear (Canal Caps), 2006 Digital print laminated on acrylic 30 x 23 inches Courtesy the artist

Hard Wear (Oral Rims), 2006 Gold-plated electroformed copper 2 pieces, 4 x 4 inches each Courtesy the artist Hard Wear (Oral Rims), 2006 Digital print laminated on acrylic 2 panels, 30 x 23 inches each Courtesy the artist Hard Wear (Pearls), 2006 Pearls and wire 2 x 4 inches Courtesy the artist Hard Wear (Pearls), 2006 Digital print laminated on acrylic 32 x 23 inches Courtesy the artist Hard Wear (Tongue Gilding), 2006 Digital print laminated on acrylic 35 x 23 inches Courtesy the artist

Hard Wear (Gold Bracelet), 2006 Digital print laminated on acrylic 36 x 23 inches Courtesy the artist

Nine stainless steel tables 36 x 30 x 12 inches each Courtesy the artist

Hard Wear (Gold Duct), 2006 Gold-plated electroformed copper 2 x 2 x 1 inches Courtesy the artist

Christy Matson

Hard Wear (Gold Duct), 2006 Digital print laminated on acrylic 28 x 23 inches Courtesy the artist Hard Wear (Lids), 2006 Gold-plated electroformed copper, semiprecious stones 2 pieces, 1 x 2 inches each Courtesy the artist Hard Wear (Lids), 2006 Digital print laminated on acrylic 32 x 24 inches Courtesy the artist Hard Wear (Necklace), 2006 Digital print laminated on acrylic 6 panels, 15 x 15 inches each Courtesy the artist

Hard Wear (Aural, Oral, Digital Gems), 2006 Gold-plated electroformed copper 3 pieces, 3 x 3 x 3 inches each Courtesy the artist

Hard Wear (Nostril Jewel), 2006 Gold-plated electroformed copper, semiprecious stones 3 x 2 x 1 inches Courtesy the artist

Hard Wear (Aural, Oral, Digital Gems), 2006 Digital print laminated on acrylic Triptych, 30 x 23 inches each panel Courtesy the artist

Hard Wear (Nostril Jewel), 2006 Digital print laminated on acrylic 30 x 23 inches Courtesy the artist

Sonic Structure I, 2006/10 Hand-Jacquard-woven cotton and copper, single-channel interactive sound 29 x 144 inches Courtesy the artist

Sheila Pepe Common Sense II, 2010 Rope, shoelaces, yarn Dimensions variable Courtesy the artist

Michael Rea Wood Load-In, 2004 Carved wood, burlap, rope Dimensions variable Courtesy the artist I Yell Because I Care, 2005 Digital video, color, sound Duration: 4:35 minutes Courtesy the artist

Anne Wilson Wind-Up: Walking the Warp, 2008 Digital video documentation by Jeroen Nelemans of performance and sculpture at Rhona Hoffman Gallery, Chicago Duration: 7:09 minutes Courtesy the artist and Rhona Hoffman Gallery, Chicago Wind-Up: Walking the Warp, Houston, 2010 Performance/sculpture at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston Stainless steel frame, silk-cotton thread, six performers Frame: 17 x 7 feet Courtesy the artist and Rhona Hoffman Gallery, Chicago

James Melchert

Saya Woolfalk

Changes, 1972 Digital video documentation of performance Duration: 21:37 minutes Courtesy the artist; Gallery Paule Anglim, San Francisco; and Paul Kotula Gallery, Ferndale, Michigan

Ethnography of No Place, 2008 Digital video Duration: 30 minutes Courtesy the artist

Documentation of James Melchert’s performance Changes, 1972 Black-and-white photographs by Mieke H. Hille 10 photographs, 10 x 8 inches each Courtesy Mieke H. Hille

Yuka Otani Sweet Vessels, 2009 Cast granulated sugar, corn syrup Approx. 36 pieces, dimensions variable Courtesy the artist

No Place (pre)Constructed: Self and Landscape, 2008/10 Fabric, mixed media Dimensions variable Courtesy the artist

Bohyun Yoon Glass Helmet Instrument, 2002 Blown glass 7 7/8 x 113/4 x 113/4 inches Courtesy the artist Sound of Glass Instrument, 2004 Digital video, color, sound Duration: 4 minutes Courtesy the artist

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Catalogue of the Exhibition Dimensions are given in the following order: height, width, depth.

B Team Spontaneous Combustion II, 1997 Digital video, color, sound Duration: 6:57 minutes Courtesy Zesty Meyers and R 20th Century Gallery, New York Tricks, 1998–99 Digital video, color, sound Duration: 10:28 minutes Courtesy Zesty Meyers and R 20th Century Gallery, New York

Conrad Bakker Untitled Project: Book-of-the-Month Club, 2010 Carved wood, paint 6 works, approx. 6 x 4 x 2 inches each Courtesy the artist and Lora Reynolds Gallery, Austin

Nick Cave Invasion, 2008 Digital video projection Duration: 90 minutes Courtesy the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York Untitled (Soundsuits), 2009–10 Fabric, beads, and mixed media 5 works, 106 x 36 x 28 inches each Courtesy the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York

Cat Chow Not for Sale, 2002 1,000 donated U.S. dollar bills, shredded; invisible thread; fishing line; glue; list of 1,000 sponsors 72 x 24 x 24 inches Courtesy the artist Untitled (new work), 2010 Media and dimensions to be determined Courtesy the artist

Sonya Clark Onigi 13, 1997 Thread, cloth 10 x 14 x 14 inches Courtesy the artist Crown, 1998 Thread, cloth 10 x 14 x 14 inches Courtesy the artist

Dryad, 1998 Thread, cloth 10 x 14 x 14 inches Collection James Dozier Fingers, 1998 Thread, cloth, crochet 10 x 14 x 14 inches Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, Wisconsin. Purchase, through Rudolph and Louise Langer Fund Hemi, 1998 Thread, cloth 4 x 8 x 8 inches Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, Wisconsin. Purchase, through Rudolph and Louise Langer Fund Spider, 1998 Thread, cloth 4 x 8 x 8 inches Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, Wisconsin. Purchase, through Rudolph and Louise Langer Fund Triad, 1998 Thread, cloth 4 x 8 x 8 inches Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, Wisconsin. Purchase, through Rudolph and Louise Langer Fund Unum, 1998 Thread, cloth 10 x 14 x 14 inches Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, Wisconsin. Purchase, through Rudolph and Louise Langer Fund Pepperhead, 1999 Straw, pompoms 10 x 14 x 14 inches Courtesy the artist

Gabriel Craig The Pro Bono Jeweler, 2008–10 Digital video documentation of performance/public intervention Duration: 5:46 minutes Courtesy the artist The Gospel according to Craft, 2009 Digital video documentation of performance/public intervention Duration: 5:25 minutes Courtesy the artist

Theaster Gates

Hard Wear (Blemish Gilding), 2006 Gold, adhesive skin, hair, glass jar 2 x 2 x 4 inches overall Courtesy the artist

A Closer Walk with Thee, 2010 Performance Courtesy the artist and Kavi Gupta Gallery, Chicago

Hard Wear (Blemish Gilding), 2006 Digital print laminated on acrylic 28 x 23 inches Courtesy the artist

Dave: A Legendary Black Clay Superhero, 2010 Porcelain speakers, turntable, audio system Speakers: 24 x 15 inches each Turntable: 20 x 20 inches Courtesy the artist and Kavi Gupta Gallery, Chicago

Hard Wear (Bracelet), 2006 Digital print laminated on acrylic 36 x 23 inches Courtesy the artist

Cynthia Giachetti Flower Ceremony, 2010 Performance Courtesy the artist still life, 2010 Fired clay, metal, electrical wiring, bulbs 36 x 30 x 36 inches Courtesy the artist

Ryan Gothrup Diversion, 2007 Hand-blown glass basketball, rubber basketballs, metal rack Basketballs: 30 inches circumference Rack: 36 x 48 x 12 inches Courtesy the artist Diversion, 2007 Digital video, color, sound Duration: 7:08 minutes Courtesy the artist

Sabrina Gschwandtner Crochet Film, 2004/2010 Wool, 16mm film, 16mm projector, wood, plastic Dimensions variable Duration: 2:14 minutes (looped) Courtesy the artist

Lauren Kalman

Hard Wear (Canal Caps), 2006 Gold-plated electroformed copper 2 pieces, 1 x 1 x 1/2 inches each Courtesy the artist Hard Wear (Canal Caps), 2006 Digital print laminated on acrylic 30 x 23 inches Courtesy the artist

Hard Wear (Oral Rims), 2006 Gold-plated electroformed copper 2 pieces, 4 x 4 inches each Courtesy the artist Hard Wear (Oral Rims), 2006 Digital print laminated on acrylic 2 panels, 30 x 23 inches each Courtesy the artist Hard Wear (Pearls), 2006 Pearls and wire 2 x 4 inches Courtesy the artist Hard Wear (Pearls), 2006 Digital print laminated on acrylic 32 x 23 inches Courtesy the artist Hard Wear (Tongue Gilding), 2006 Digital print laminated on acrylic 35 x 23 inches Courtesy the artist

Hard Wear (Gold Bracelet), 2006 Digital print laminated on acrylic 36 x 23 inches Courtesy the artist

Nine stainless steel tables 36 x 30 x 12 inches each Courtesy the artist

Hard Wear (Gold Duct), 2006 Gold-plated electroformed copper 2 x 2 x 1 inches Courtesy the artist

Christy Matson

Hard Wear (Gold Duct), 2006 Digital print laminated on acrylic 28 x 23 inches Courtesy the artist Hard Wear (Lids), 2006 Gold-plated electroformed copper, semiprecious stones 2 pieces, 1 x 2 inches each Courtesy the artist Hard Wear (Lids), 2006 Digital print laminated on acrylic 32 x 24 inches Courtesy the artist Hard Wear (Necklace), 2006 Digital print laminated on acrylic 6 panels, 15 x 15 inches each Courtesy the artist

Hard Wear (Aural, Oral, Digital Gems), 2006 Gold-plated electroformed copper 3 pieces, 3 x 3 x 3 inches each Courtesy the artist

Hard Wear (Nostril Jewel), 2006 Gold-plated electroformed copper, semiprecious stones 3 x 2 x 1 inches Courtesy the artist

Hard Wear (Aural, Oral, Digital Gems), 2006 Digital print laminated on acrylic Triptych, 30 x 23 inches each panel Courtesy the artist

Hard Wear (Nostril Jewel), 2006 Digital print laminated on acrylic 30 x 23 inches Courtesy the artist

Sonic Structure I, 2006/10 Hand-Jacquard-woven cotton and copper, single-channel interactive sound 29 x 144 inches Courtesy the artist

Sheila Pepe Common Sense II, 2010 Rope, shoelaces, yarn Dimensions variable Courtesy the artist

Michael Rea Wood Load-In, 2004 Carved wood, burlap, rope Dimensions variable Courtesy the artist I Yell Because I Care, 2005 Digital video, color, sound Duration: 4:35 minutes Courtesy the artist

Anne Wilson Wind-Up: Walking the Warp, 2008 Digital video documentation by Jeroen Nelemans of performance and sculpture at Rhona Hoffman Gallery, Chicago Duration: 7:09 minutes Courtesy the artist and Rhona Hoffman Gallery, Chicago Wind-Up: Walking the Warp, Houston, 2010 Performance/sculpture at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston Stainless steel frame, silk-cotton thread, six performers Frame: 17 x 7 feet Courtesy the artist and Rhona Hoffman Gallery, Chicago

James Melchert

Saya Woolfalk

Changes, 1972 Digital video documentation of performance Duration: 21:37 minutes Courtesy the artist; Gallery Paule Anglim, San Francisco; and Paul Kotula Gallery, Ferndale, Michigan

Ethnography of No Place, 2008 Digital video Duration: 30 minutes Courtesy the artist

Documentation of James Melchert’s performance Changes, 1972 Black-and-white photographs by Mieke H. Hille 10 photographs, 10 x 8 inches each Courtesy Mieke H. Hille

Yuka Otani Sweet Vessels, 2009 Cast granulated sugar, corn syrup Approx. 36 pieces, dimensions variable Courtesy the artist

No Place (pre)Constructed: Self and Landscape, 2008/10 Fabric, mixed media Dimensions variable Courtesy the artist

Bohyun Yoon Glass Helmet Instrument, 2002 Blown glass 7 7/8 x 113/4 x 113/4 inches Courtesy the artist Sound of Glass Instrument, 2004 Digital video, color, sound Duration: 4 minutes Courtesy the artist

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Artists’ Biographies compiled by

SAR AH G. C ASSID Y

B Team

Conrad Bakker

Collaborative with various members, active 1991–98 Based in Boston and New York

Canadian, born 1970 Lives and works in Urbana, Illinois

B Team was a glass art performance group founded in 1991 by Massachusetts College of Art student Zesty Meyers and fellow students Mike Weldon, Ian Lewis, and James Mongrain. Their goal was to open up the possibilities of the glass object, to honor tradition and technique while guiding the medium into the larger sphere of contemporary art. They did this by staging glass “happenings,” a punk approach to glassblowing that combined conceptual art, performance, and traditional techniques. They began traveling as “The Massachusetts College of Art Student Glass Tour,” with stops at academic glass programs, including those at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Kent State University in Ohio. They eventually named themselves B Team to denote their separation from the “A Team” of prominent gallery glass artists, such as Dale Chihuly, Dan Dailey, and Howard Ben Tre. The membership of B Team fluctuated in its seven years of existence, including, in addition to the founders, Chuck Vinetta, Thor Bueno, Kait Rhodes, Deborah Czeresko, Clay Logan, Jeff Zimmerman, Sarah Chase, Evan Snyderman, and Kelly Lamb. In 1994 B Team made its first appearance at UrbanGlass in Brooklyn and, inspired by the space, relocated from Boston to New York. In 1996 the group presented its tour de force, Spontaneous Combustion I, a multimedia performance, at UrbanGlass. It was followed by Spontaneous Combustion II in 1997 and spurred additional performances that year at the Fringe Festival in Philadelphia, where elements of Glass Tricks were made; the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York; the Islip Art Museum in East Islip, New York; and Grand Arts in Kansas City, Missouri.

The B Team’s first exhibition at the Robert Lehman Gallery at UrbanGlass was titled Five Senses (1995).

That year the group received a Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Biennial Award. In 1998 Spontaneous Combustion II won a New York Dance and Performance Award, better known as a Bessie, in the category of performance installation and new media. The B Team was also invited to perform in Japan and to deliver a lecture in Tokyo. Shortly afterward, the group disbanded. Satisfied with their contribution to glass art, the artists chose to pursue individual careers. In its short life span, however, B Team turned the world of glass on its head, combining the historically separate spheres of glassblowing and performance, and craft and art.

Conrad Bakker received a BFA from Calvin College, Grand Rapids, Michigan, in 1992 and an MFA from Washington University in Saint Louis in 1996. Bakker is currently assistant director of graduate studies and an associate professor at the School of Art and Design at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He has also been a visiting professor at Rutgers University in New Jersey and taught at Calvin College.

Bakker’s ongoing Untitled Project has been exhibited in various forms in solo exhibitions and installations at the Institute for Genomic Biology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (2009); Space B Gallery, New York (2009); Pulse Art Fair, Miami (2008); Des Moines Art Center (2008); Kinzelman Art Consulting, Houston (2007); Lora Reynolds Gallery, Austin, Texas (2007, 2005); Indianapolis Museum of Contemporary Art (2006); UIC Gallery 400, University of Illinois at Chicago (2005); Southern Exposure, San Francisco (2005); Fargfabriken, Stockholm (2003); Revolution Gallery, Detroit (2000); and Rudolph-Poissant Gallery, Houston (1999).

Bakker’s work has been presented in group exhibitions including Contemporary Culture, Lora Reynolds Gallery, Austin, Texas (2009); Wall Rockets: Contemporary Artists and Ed Ruscha, Albright-KnoxArt Gallery, Buffalo, New York (2009); Response: Art and the Art of Criticism, ISPACE Gallery, Chicago (2009); Rich Text, Fleisher-Ollman Gallery, Philadelphia (2009); Peintures, entre autres,Analix Forever, Geneva, Switzerland (2008); Doppelganger, Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey (2008); Dollars and More, Galerie Analix Forever, Artissima14, Turin, Italy (2007); The Irresistible Force, Tate Modern, London (2007); Transactions, Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, Texas (2007); The Price of Everything..., Whitney Independent Study Curatorial Program Exhibition at CUNY, New York (2007); EBAYADAY (Untitled Project: Rolex/eBAY), online exhibition through the University of Michigan (2006); The Coffee Was Very Slow in Coming, Paul Kotula Projects, Detroit (2006); Shopdropping, New Gallery, Calgary, Canada (2006); Contemporary Art in the Midwest, 2005 DePauw Biennial, DePauw University, Greencastle, Indiana (2005); Sixth Annual Altoids Curiously Strong Collection, New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York (traveled 2004); Living with Duchamp, Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery, Skidmore College,

Saratoga Springs, New York (2003); Make It Real, Soap Factory, Minneapolis (2003); Watery, Domestic, Renaissance Society, Chicago (2002); Daily Life, Rudolph Projects, Houston (2001); Souvenirs/Documents: Twenty Years, PS122 Gallery, New York (1999); and New Work ’96, Artspace, New Haven, Connecticut (1996).

Bakker has lectured extensively on his work at institutions such as the Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C. (2009); Des Moines Art Center (2008); Tate Modern, London (2007); and the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York (2006).

His work has been reviewed in publications including Art Papers, Artforum, Designboom Weblog, ARTL!ES, and Sculpture Magazine.

Nick Cave American, born 1959 Lives and works in Chicago

Nick Cave received a BFA from Kansas City Art Institute (1982), pursued graduate studies at the University of North Texas (1984–86), and received an MFA from the Cranbrook Academy of Art (1989). He is a professor of fashion design at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Cave has performed with his Soundsuits at venues including the Holter Museum of Art, Helena, Montana (2004); Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond (2003); Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (2003); Lincoln Park Zoo, Chicago (2003); Cranbrook Academy of Art, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan (2002); and Handweavers Guild of America Conference, Cincinnati (2000).

Cave’s work has been shown in solo exhibitions at Studio La Città, Verona, Italy (2010); Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco (2009); Jack Shainman Gallery, New York (2009, 2006); Fosdick-Nelson Gallery, Alfred University, Alfred, New York (2008); Museum of Contemporary Art, Jacksonville, Florida (2008); Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Providence (2007); Cornell Fine Arts Museum, Winter Park, Florida (2006); Chicago Cultural Center (2006); Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild, Pittsburgh (2006); Holter Museum of Art, Helena, Montana (2005); Hand Workshop Art Center, Richmond, Virginia (2003); Fort Wayne Museum of Art, Indiana (2001); South Bend Museum of Art, Indiana (1999); and Grand Arts, Kansas City, Missouri (1997).

Among Cave’s group exhibitions are ReAdDRESSing Identities: Clothing as Sculpture, Katonah Art Museum, New York (2009); Über-Portrait, Bellevue Museum, Washington (2009); Fashion Forward, Islip Art Museum, East Islip, New York (2009); Of the Cloth, Shore Institute of Contemporary Arts, Long Branch, New Jersey (2008); Speaking Volumes: Transforming Hate, Holter Museum, Helena, Montana (2008); Hot House: Expanding the Field of Fiber at Cranbrook, Reading Museum, Pennsylvania (2008); Unholy Alliance: Art + Fashion Meet Again, Museum of Contemporary

Canadian Art, Toronto (2006); Black Alphabet: Contexts of Contemporary African American Art, Zacheta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw (2006); Black Panther Rank and File, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco (2006); Frequency, Studio Museum in Harlem, New York (2005); Art-Wear, California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco (2005); The Nature of Craft and the Penland Experience, Mint Museum of Craft and Design, Charlotte, North Carolina (2004); Body and Soul, American Craft Museum, New York (2002); Concealing and Revealing, Kohler Arts Center, Sheboygan, Wisconsin (2002); and Stop Asking, We Exist, American Craft Museum, New York (1999).

Cave has been awarded the Joan Mitchell Foundation Award (2008); Artadia Award (2006); Joyce Foundation Joyce Award (2006); Creative Capital Grant (2004, 2002); Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Biennial Award (2001); Field Museum of Natural History Award (2000); Illinois Arts Council State Grant (1997, 1993); and Arts Midwest Grant (1993).

Cave’s work is in the collections of the Brooklyn Museum; the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C; Portland Art Museum, Oregon; Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art, Philadelphia; High Museum of Art, Atlanta; Seattle Art Museum; and Mint Museum, Charlotte, North Carolina. His work has been reviewed in publications including Art Papers, Modern Painters, Sculpture, Art News, Artforum, and American Craft.

Cat Chow American, born 1973 Lives and works in Brooklyn

Cat Chow received a BS in theater from Northwestern University (1995). Her solo exhibitions include Love Me or Die, University of Northern Iowa Gallery of Art, Cedar Falls (2009); Beyond Fiber Art, Bascom Center for Visual Arts, Highlands, North Carolina (2009); Speak Softly, Elmhurst Art Museum, Illinois (2008); As I Lay Dying, Elk Gallery, New York (2007); Material Girl, Cedar Rapids Museum of Art, Iowa (2006); Second Skin, Kresge Art Museum, East Lansing, Michigan (2006); Cat Chow, Cincinnati Art Museum (2005); Interpretation of Seams, Gahlberg Gallery, College of DuPage, Glen Ellyn, Illinois (2005); and Dressing Objects, Chicago Cultural Center (2002).

Chow’s work has been included in group exhibitions such as Transformations: From Ordinary to Extraordinary, Nevada Museum of Art, Reno (2009); Dress Codes: Clothing as Metaphor, Katonah Museum of Art, New York (2009); Collaborative Vision: The Poetic Dialogue Project, Chicago Cultural Center (traveled 2009– 10); Manufractured: The Conspicuous Transformation of Everyday Objects, Museum of Contemporary Craft, Portland, Oregon (traveled 2008–9); Dieu Donné Annual Benefit Exhibition and Auction, New York

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Artists’ Biographies compiled by

SAR AH G. C ASSID Y

B Team

Conrad Bakker

Collaborative with various members, active 1991–98 Based in Boston and New York

Canadian, born 1970 Lives and works in Urbana, Illinois

B Team was a glass art performance group founded in 1991 by Massachusetts College of Art student Zesty Meyers and fellow students Mike Weldon, Ian Lewis, and James Mongrain. Their goal was to open up the possibilities of the glass object, to honor tradition and technique while guiding the medium into the larger sphere of contemporary art. They did this by staging glass “happenings,” a punk approach to glassblowing that combined conceptual art, performance, and traditional techniques. They began traveling as “The Massachusetts College of Art Student Glass Tour,” with stops at academic glass programs, including those at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Kent State University in Ohio. They eventually named themselves B Team to denote their separation from the “A Team” of prominent gallery glass artists, such as Dale Chihuly, Dan Dailey, and Howard Ben Tre. The membership of B Team fluctuated in its seven years of existence, including, in addition to the founders, Chuck Vinetta, Thor Bueno, Kait Rhodes, Deborah Czeresko, Clay Logan, Jeff Zimmerman, Sarah Chase, Evan Snyderman, and Kelly Lamb. In 1994 B Team made its first appearance at UrbanGlass in Brooklyn and, inspired by the space, relocated from Boston to New York. In 1996 the group presented its tour de force, Spontaneous Combustion I, a multimedia performance, at UrbanGlass. It was followed by Spontaneous Combustion II in 1997 and spurred additional performances that year at the Fringe Festival in Philadelphia, where elements of Glass Tricks were made; the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York; the Islip Art Museum in East Islip, New York; and Grand Arts in Kansas City, Missouri.

The B Team’s first exhibition at the Robert Lehman Gallery at UrbanGlass was titled Five Senses (1995).

That year the group received a Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Biennial Award. In 1998 Spontaneous Combustion II won a New York Dance and Performance Award, better known as a Bessie, in the category of performance installation and new media. The B Team was also invited to perform in Japan and to deliver a lecture in Tokyo. Shortly afterward, the group disbanded. Satisfied with their contribution to glass art, the artists chose to pursue individual careers. In its short life span, however, B Team turned the world of glass on its head, combining the historically separate spheres of glassblowing and performance, and craft and art.

Conrad Bakker received a BFA from Calvin College, Grand Rapids, Michigan, in 1992 and an MFA from Washington University in Saint Louis in 1996. Bakker is currently assistant director of graduate studies and an associate professor at the School of Art and Design at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He has also been a visiting professor at Rutgers University in New Jersey and taught at Calvin College.

Bakker’s ongoing Untitled Project has been exhibited in various forms in solo exhibitions and installations at the Institute for Genomic Biology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (2009); Space B Gallery, New York (2009); Pulse Art Fair, Miami (2008); Des Moines Art Center (2008); Kinzelman Art Consulting, Houston (2007); Lora Reynolds Gallery, Austin, Texas (2007, 2005); Indianapolis Museum of Contemporary Art (2006); UIC Gallery 400, University of Illinois at Chicago (2005); Southern Exposure, San Francisco (2005); Fargfabriken, Stockholm (2003); Revolution Gallery, Detroit (2000); and Rudolph-Poissant Gallery, Houston (1999).

Bakker’s work has been presented in group exhibitions including Contemporary Culture, Lora Reynolds Gallery, Austin, Texas (2009); Wall Rockets: Contemporary Artists and Ed Ruscha, Albright-KnoxArt Gallery, Buffalo, New York (2009); Response: Art and the Art of Criticism, ISPACE Gallery, Chicago (2009); Rich Text, Fleisher-Ollman Gallery, Philadelphia (2009); Peintures, entre autres,Analix Forever, Geneva, Switzerland (2008); Doppelganger, Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey (2008); Dollars and More, Galerie Analix Forever, Artissima14, Turin, Italy (2007); The Irresistible Force, Tate Modern, London (2007); Transactions, Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, Texas (2007); The Price of Everything..., Whitney Independent Study Curatorial Program Exhibition at CUNY, New York (2007); EBAYADAY (Untitled Project: Rolex/eBAY), online exhibition through the University of Michigan (2006); The Coffee Was Very Slow in Coming, Paul Kotula Projects, Detroit (2006); Shopdropping, New Gallery, Calgary, Canada (2006); Contemporary Art in the Midwest, 2005 DePauw Biennial, DePauw University, Greencastle, Indiana (2005); Sixth Annual Altoids Curiously Strong Collection, New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York (traveled 2004); Living with Duchamp, Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery, Skidmore College,

Saratoga Springs, New York (2003); Make It Real, Soap Factory, Minneapolis (2003); Watery, Domestic, Renaissance Society, Chicago (2002); Daily Life, Rudolph Projects, Houston (2001); Souvenirs/Documents: Twenty Years, PS122 Gallery, New York (1999); and New Work ’96, Artspace, New Haven, Connecticut (1996).

Bakker has lectured extensively on his work at institutions such as the Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C. (2009); Des Moines Art Center (2008); Tate Modern, London (2007); and the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York (2006).

His work has been reviewed in publications including Art Papers, Artforum, Designboom Weblog, ARTL!ES, and Sculpture Magazine.

Nick Cave American, born 1959 Lives and works in Chicago

Nick Cave received a BFA from Kansas City Art Institute (1982), pursued graduate studies at the University of North Texas (1984–86), and received an MFA from the Cranbrook Academy of Art (1989). He is a professor of fashion design at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Cave has performed with his Soundsuits at venues including the Holter Museum of Art, Helena, Montana (2004); Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond (2003); Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (2003); Lincoln Park Zoo, Chicago (2003); Cranbrook Academy of Art, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan (2002); and Handweavers Guild of America Conference, Cincinnati (2000).

Cave’s work has been shown in solo exhibitions at Studio La Città, Verona, Italy (2010); Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco (2009); Jack Shainman Gallery, New York (2009, 2006); Fosdick-Nelson Gallery, Alfred University, Alfred, New York (2008); Museum of Contemporary Art, Jacksonville, Florida (2008); Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Providence (2007); Cornell Fine Arts Museum, Winter Park, Florida (2006); Chicago Cultural Center (2006); Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild, Pittsburgh (2006); Holter Museum of Art, Helena, Montana (2005); Hand Workshop Art Center, Richmond, Virginia (2003); Fort Wayne Museum of Art, Indiana (2001); South Bend Museum of Art, Indiana (1999); and Grand Arts, Kansas City, Missouri (1997).

Among Cave’s group exhibitions are ReAdDRESSing Identities: Clothing as Sculpture, Katonah Art Museum, New York (2009); Über-Portrait, Bellevue Museum, Washington (2009); Fashion Forward, Islip Art Museum, East Islip, New York (2009); Of the Cloth, Shore Institute of Contemporary Arts, Long Branch, New Jersey (2008); Speaking Volumes: Transforming Hate, Holter Museum, Helena, Montana (2008); Hot House: Expanding the Field of Fiber at Cranbrook, Reading Museum, Pennsylvania (2008); Unholy Alliance: Art + Fashion Meet Again, Museum of Contemporary

Canadian Art, Toronto (2006); Black Alphabet: Contexts of Contemporary African American Art, Zacheta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw (2006); Black Panther Rank and File, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco (2006); Frequency, Studio Museum in Harlem, New York (2005); Art-Wear, California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco (2005); The Nature of Craft and the Penland Experience, Mint Museum of Craft and Design, Charlotte, North Carolina (2004); Body and Soul, American Craft Museum, New York (2002); Concealing and Revealing, Kohler Arts Center, Sheboygan, Wisconsin (2002); and Stop Asking, We Exist, American Craft Museum, New York (1999).

Cave has been awarded the Joan Mitchell Foundation Award (2008); Artadia Award (2006); Joyce Foundation Joyce Award (2006); Creative Capital Grant (2004, 2002); Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Biennial Award (2001); Field Museum of Natural History Award (2000); Illinois Arts Council State Grant (1997, 1993); and Arts Midwest Grant (1993).

Cave’s work is in the collections of the Brooklyn Museum; the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C; Portland Art Museum, Oregon; Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art, Philadelphia; High Museum of Art, Atlanta; Seattle Art Museum; and Mint Museum, Charlotte, North Carolina. His work has been reviewed in publications including Art Papers, Modern Painters, Sculpture, Art News, Artforum, and American Craft.

Cat Chow American, born 1973 Lives and works in Brooklyn

Cat Chow received a BS in theater from Northwestern University (1995). Her solo exhibitions include Love Me or Die, University of Northern Iowa Gallery of Art, Cedar Falls (2009); Beyond Fiber Art, Bascom Center for Visual Arts, Highlands, North Carolina (2009); Speak Softly, Elmhurst Art Museum, Illinois (2008); As I Lay Dying, Elk Gallery, New York (2007); Material Girl, Cedar Rapids Museum of Art, Iowa (2006); Second Skin, Kresge Art Museum, East Lansing, Michigan (2006); Cat Chow, Cincinnati Art Museum (2005); Interpretation of Seams, Gahlberg Gallery, College of DuPage, Glen Ellyn, Illinois (2005); and Dressing Objects, Chicago Cultural Center (2002).

Chow’s work has been included in group exhibitions such as Transformations: From Ordinary to Extraordinary, Nevada Museum of Art, Reno (2009); Dress Codes: Clothing as Metaphor, Katonah Museum of Art, New York (2009); Collaborative Vision: The Poetic Dialogue Project, Chicago Cultural Center (traveled 2009– 10); Manufractured: The Conspicuous Transformation of Everyday Objects, Museum of Contemporary Craft, Portland, Oregon (traveled 2008–9); Dieu Donné Annual Benefit Exhibition and Auction, New York

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(2009); Not Just Another Pretty Face, Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago (2008); Evolution Revolution: The Arts and Crafts in Contemporary Fashion and Textiles, Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Providence (2008); Pulp Function, James A. Michener Art Museum, Doylestown, Pennsylvania (traveled 2007); Young Chicago, Art Institute of Chicago (2007); Love and War: The Weaponized Woman, Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology, New York (2006); Pattern Language: Clothing as Communicator, Tufts University Art Gallery, Medford, Massachusetts (traveled 2005–8); Artwear: Fashion and Anti-Fashion, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (2005); Soft Edge, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (2004); Goddess, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2003); Splat Boom Pow! The Influence of Cartoons in Contemporary Art, Contemporary Arts Museum Houston (2003); Faces in the Field, Field Museum, Chicago (2001); Uncommon Threads: Contemporary Artists and Clothing, Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York (2001); Material Evidence: Chicago Architecture at 2000, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (1999).

At the end of 2009 Chow’s costumes appeared in MARAT/SADE (The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade), a play by Peter Weiss, directed by Jay Edelnant and Gwendolyn Schwinke at the Strayer-Wood Theatre, University of Northern Iowa.

Chow has been awarded a visiting professorship in the Distinguished Faculty Program at the Savannah College of Art and Design (2008); the Urban Artist Initiative, New York (2005, 2006); the Artists Fellowship Award, Illinois Arts Council (2005, 2002); the Louis Comfort Tiffany Biennial Award (2003); and the Avantgarde Design Vision Award from the Gen Art International Design Competition, New York (2000).

Sonya Clark American, born 1967 Lives and works in Richmond, Virginia

Sonya Clark received a BA from Amherst College (1989); a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (1993); and an MFA from the Cranbrook Academy of Art (1995). Since 2006 Clark has been professor and chair in craft/material studies at the Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts.

Clark’s work has been presented in solo exhibitions including Combs: Pieces and Parts, List Gallery, Swarthmore College, Pennsylvania (2009); Loose Strands, Tight Knots, Walters Museum of Art, Baltimore (2008); Groom Room, Delaware Contemporary Art Center, Wilmington (2008); Tangles and Teeth, Kohler Arts Center, Sheboygan, Wisconsin (2006); Galerie Goettlicher, Krems-Stein,Austria (2002); African Inspirations: Sculpted Headwear,

University of Iowa Museum of Art, Iowa City, and Indianapolis Art Museum (2001–2).

Among Clark’s group exhibitions are The Complex Weave: Women and Identity in Contemporary Art, Stedman Gallery, Rutgers-Camden Center for the Arts, New Jersey (travels through 2015); Taking Time, organized by Craftspace (travels through 2011); Upcycling, Architecture and Design Museum, Los Angeles (2009); Dress Codes: Clothing as Metaphor in Contemporary Art, Katonah Museum of Art, New York (2009); Manufractured: The Conspicuous Transformation of Everyday Objects, Museum of Contemporary Craft, Portland, Oregon (traveled 2008–9); Second Lives, Museum of Arts and Design, New York (2008); Mami Wata: Arts for Water Spirits, UCLA Fowler Museum, Los Angeles (traveled 2008–11); Pricked: Extreme Embroidery, Museum of Arts and Design, New York (2007); Artificial Afrika, Gigantic Art Space, New York (2006); Pins and Needles, Kohler Arts Center, Sheboygan, Wisconsin (2003); Hair Stories, Scottsdale Museum of Art, Arizona (traveled 2003–5); and The Audacious Bead, Bead Museum, Washington, D.C. (2002).

Clark’s worldwide community art project, The Beaded Prayers Project, and the corresponding traveling exhibition, Beaded Blessings, have had more than forty-five hundred participants from more than thirty countries since 1999.

Clark has received many honors and accolades, including the Virginia Commission for the Arts Fellowship (2009); Rockefeller Foundation, Bellagio Residency, Italy (2006); Pollock Krasner Grant (2006); Ruth Chenven Foundation Award (2005); Red Gate Artist in Residence, Beijing (2005); Romnes Award, University of Wisconsin—Madison (2004); Emily Mead BaldwinBascom Professorship in Creative Arts (2004); Joan C. Edwards Distinguished Professor in the Arts Residency, Marshall University (2004); University of Wisconsin— Madison Research Grant (2002, 2001, 2000, 1997); Meta Schroeder Beckner Endowment Grant (2002, 2000); CityArts Grant, Baltimore (2001); Lillian Elliott Award (2000); Wisconsin Arts Board Artist Fellowship Award (2000); Arts Institute Edna Wiechers Grant (1999); Hunter Museum of Art Juror’s Choice Award (1996); Smithsonian Institution Graduate Fellowship, National Museum of African Art (1994).

Clark’s work is in the permanent collections of the Cranbrook Art Museum, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan; Hampton University Museum, Virginia; Helen Louise Allen Textile Collection, Madison, Wisconsin; Indianapolis Museum of Art; Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, Wisconsin; Mead Art Museum, Amherst, Massachusetts; Montreal Museum of Decorative Arts; Musées d’Angers, France; and the University of Iowa Museum of Art, Iowa City. Her work has been reviewed in the NewYork Times, Fiberarts, American Craft, African Arts, d’Art International, Metalsmith, and Sculpture.

Gabriel Craig

Theaster Gates

American, born 1983 Lives and works in Houston

American, born 1975 Lives and works in Chicago

Gabriel Craig received a BFA in metals/jewelry from Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo (2006). He received a postbaccalaureate certificate from the PontAven School of Contemporary Art in Brittany, France (2006); and an MFA in craft/material studies from Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond (2009).

He is currently the artist in residence at the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft.

Craig has performed The Pro Bono Jeweler at Quirk Gallery, Richmond, Virginia (2008); Narcissist: Eight Confessions of an Academic Jeweler at Nedwick Theater, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond (2008); The Collegiate Jeweler, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond (2007) and Le Christ de Jaune, town square, Pont-Aven, France, with Colby Claycombe (2006).

For 2010 Craig’s exhibitions include Not the Family Jewels, 1724 Gallery, Houston, and Adornment and Excess: Jewelry in the Twenty-first Century, Miami University Art Museum, Oxford, Ohio. He was also a presenter at the North American Goldsmiths Conference in Houston. Craig is currently teaching a course in metals at Houston Community College.

Craig has participated in many exhibitions, including Stuff: Jewelry for the People, Sub Octo Gallery, Philadelphia (2009); Decorative Resurgence, Rowan University Art Gallery, Glassboro, New Jersey (2009); Laughingstock: Humor in Art and Craft, Luke and Eloy Gallery, Pittsburgh (2008); The Ring Show: Putting the Band Back Together, Georgia Museum of Art, Atlanta, (2008); Composting Good and Evil: Redesign for Sanctimonious Sinners, online virtual exhibition and Savannah College of Art and Design, Georgia (2008); VCU at Pratt, Steuben Galleries, Pratt Institute, Brooklyn (2008); Necklust and the Chocolatiere, Florida Craftsman Gallery, Saint Petersburg (2008); Dix-neuf, Centre International d’Art Contemporain, Pont-Aven, France (2006); Shaped in Metal, Muskegon Museum of Art, Michigan (2006); Fortieth Memorial International Enameling Art Exhibition, Ueno Royal Museum, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo (2006); Gabriel Craig: Vessels and Adornment, Plata y Oro, Kalamazoo, Michigan (2005); and Jewelry + Object, Ann Arbor Art Center, Michigan (2005).

Craig has contributed essays to American Craft and Metalsmith and is the founding editor of the blog Conceptual Metalsmithing. His work has been reviewed in American Craft and Metalsmith.

Theaster Gates received a BS in urban planning and sculpture from Iowa State University (1995); an MA in fine arts and religious studies from the University of Cape Town, South Africa (1998); and an interdisciplinary MS degree in urban planning, studio art, and religious studies at Iowa State University (2005).

Gates’s piece Cosmology ofYard appeared in the 2010 Whitney Biennial at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. A solo exhibition, titled Resurrecting Dave, is on view at the Milwaukee Art Museum until August 2010. Gates received a John Michael Kohler Arts in Industry Residency (2010). He is currently the coordinator of arts programming, Office of the Provost, University of Chicago.

Among Gates’s many solo exhibitions and performances are An Afternoon of Art and Performance, Little Black Pearl, Chicago (2009); On Another Note: Extractions from the Chicago Jazz Archive Collection, DOVA Temporary, University of Chicago (2009); Temple Exercises, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (2009); Holiness in Three Parts, Boots Contemporary Gallery, Saint Louis (2009); and Plate Convergence, Hyde Part Art Center, Chicago (2007).

Gates’s artistic practice extends beyond the conventional exhibition space to become a kind of public activism. Because of this, his artistic practice is often realized in performances and lectures, which have included Shacks, Sheds, and Other Small Spaces, University of North Carolina, Charlotte (2009); The Dorchester Project Symposium: “Accidental Publics,” Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois (2009); UnpackingYamaguchi: Myth, Ecstasy, and the Black Church, School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2009); an exhibition and dinner titled Tea Shacks, Collard Greens, and the Preservation of Soul from the Center for the Proliferation of Afro-Asian Artifacts, Chicago Art District Gallery (2009); and Dinner at Seven, a collaboration with chef Maripa Abella, Rodan Restaurant, Chicago (2006). He is also renovating a building on his block on Chicago’s South Side to turn it into a library for books and glass lantern slides and a soul food/ Asian fusion kitchen serving, as he describes it, “honey dipped, crunchy fried mac-and-cheese unagi rolls and Saki Kool-aid.”

His music collaborative, Theaster Gates and the Black Monks of Mississippi, has performed at exhibitions and events, including Heartland at the Smart Museum of Art, University of Chicago, and the Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, the Netherlands (2008–9); Demise of the South Side Community Art Center, South Side Community Art Center, Chicago (2009); and the Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago (2008).

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(2009); Not Just Another Pretty Face, Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago (2008); Evolution Revolution: The Arts and Crafts in Contemporary Fashion and Textiles, Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Providence (2008); Pulp Function, James A. Michener Art Museum, Doylestown, Pennsylvania (traveled 2007); Young Chicago, Art Institute of Chicago (2007); Love and War: The Weaponized Woman, Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology, New York (2006); Pattern Language: Clothing as Communicator, Tufts University Art Gallery, Medford, Massachusetts (traveled 2005–8); Artwear: Fashion and Anti-Fashion, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (2005); Soft Edge, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (2004); Goddess, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2003); Splat Boom Pow! The Influence of Cartoons in Contemporary Art, Contemporary Arts Museum Houston (2003); Faces in the Field, Field Museum, Chicago (2001); Uncommon Threads: Contemporary Artists and Clothing, Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York (2001); Material Evidence: Chicago Architecture at 2000, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (1999).

At the end of 2009 Chow’s costumes appeared in MARAT/SADE (The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade), a play by Peter Weiss, directed by Jay Edelnant and Gwendolyn Schwinke at the Strayer-Wood Theatre, University of Northern Iowa.

Chow has been awarded a visiting professorship in the Distinguished Faculty Program at the Savannah College of Art and Design (2008); the Urban Artist Initiative, New York (2005, 2006); the Artists Fellowship Award, Illinois Arts Council (2005, 2002); the Louis Comfort Tiffany Biennial Award (2003); and the Avantgarde Design Vision Award from the Gen Art International Design Competition, New York (2000).

Sonya Clark American, born 1967 Lives and works in Richmond, Virginia

Sonya Clark received a BA from Amherst College (1989); a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (1993); and an MFA from the Cranbrook Academy of Art (1995). Since 2006 Clark has been professor and chair in craft/material studies at the Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts.

Clark’s work has been presented in solo exhibitions including Combs: Pieces and Parts, List Gallery, Swarthmore College, Pennsylvania (2009); Loose Strands, Tight Knots, Walters Museum of Art, Baltimore (2008); Groom Room, Delaware Contemporary Art Center, Wilmington (2008); Tangles and Teeth, Kohler Arts Center, Sheboygan, Wisconsin (2006); Galerie Goettlicher, Krems-Stein,Austria (2002); African Inspirations: Sculpted Headwear,

University of Iowa Museum of Art, Iowa City, and Indianapolis Art Museum (2001–2).

Among Clark’s group exhibitions are The Complex Weave: Women and Identity in Contemporary Art, Stedman Gallery, Rutgers-Camden Center for the Arts, New Jersey (travels through 2015); Taking Time, organized by Craftspace (travels through 2011); Upcycling, Architecture and Design Museum, Los Angeles (2009); Dress Codes: Clothing as Metaphor in Contemporary Art, Katonah Museum of Art, New York (2009); Manufractured: The Conspicuous Transformation of Everyday Objects, Museum of Contemporary Craft, Portland, Oregon (traveled 2008–9); Second Lives, Museum of Arts and Design, New York (2008); Mami Wata: Arts for Water Spirits, UCLA Fowler Museum, Los Angeles (traveled 2008–11); Pricked: Extreme Embroidery, Museum of Arts and Design, New York (2007); Artificial Afrika, Gigantic Art Space, New York (2006); Pins and Needles, Kohler Arts Center, Sheboygan, Wisconsin (2003); Hair Stories, Scottsdale Museum of Art, Arizona (traveled 2003–5); and The Audacious Bead, Bead Museum, Washington, D.C. (2002).

Clark’s worldwide community art project, The Beaded Prayers Project, and the corresponding traveling exhibition, Beaded Blessings, have had more than forty-five hundred participants from more than thirty countries since 1999.

Clark has received many honors and accolades, including the Virginia Commission for the Arts Fellowship (2009); Rockefeller Foundation, Bellagio Residency, Italy (2006); Pollock Krasner Grant (2006); Ruth Chenven Foundation Award (2005); Red Gate Artist in Residence, Beijing (2005); Romnes Award, University of Wisconsin—Madison (2004); Emily Mead BaldwinBascom Professorship in Creative Arts (2004); Joan C. Edwards Distinguished Professor in the Arts Residency, Marshall University (2004); University of Wisconsin— Madison Research Grant (2002, 2001, 2000, 1997); Meta Schroeder Beckner Endowment Grant (2002, 2000); CityArts Grant, Baltimore (2001); Lillian Elliott Award (2000); Wisconsin Arts Board Artist Fellowship Award (2000); Arts Institute Edna Wiechers Grant (1999); Hunter Museum of Art Juror’s Choice Award (1996); Smithsonian Institution Graduate Fellowship, National Museum of African Art (1994).

Clark’s work is in the permanent collections of the Cranbrook Art Museum, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan; Hampton University Museum, Virginia; Helen Louise Allen Textile Collection, Madison, Wisconsin; Indianapolis Museum of Art; Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, Wisconsin; Mead Art Museum, Amherst, Massachusetts; Montreal Museum of Decorative Arts; Musées d’Angers, France; and the University of Iowa Museum of Art, Iowa City. Her work has been reviewed in the NewYork Times, Fiberarts, American Craft, African Arts, d’Art International, Metalsmith, and Sculpture.

Gabriel Craig

Theaster Gates

American, born 1983 Lives and works in Houston

American, born 1975 Lives and works in Chicago

Gabriel Craig received a BFA in metals/jewelry from Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo (2006). He received a postbaccalaureate certificate from the PontAven School of Contemporary Art in Brittany, France (2006); and an MFA in craft/material studies from Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond (2009).

He is currently the artist in residence at the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft.

Craig has performed The Pro Bono Jeweler at Quirk Gallery, Richmond, Virginia (2008); Narcissist: Eight Confessions of an Academic Jeweler at Nedwick Theater, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond (2008); The Collegiate Jeweler, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond (2007) and Le Christ de Jaune, town square, Pont-Aven, France, with Colby Claycombe (2006).

For 2010 Craig’s exhibitions include Not the Family Jewels, 1724 Gallery, Houston, and Adornment and Excess: Jewelry in the Twenty-first Century, Miami University Art Museum, Oxford, Ohio. He was also a presenter at the North American Goldsmiths Conference in Houston. Craig is currently teaching a course in metals at Houston Community College.

Craig has participated in many exhibitions, including Stuff: Jewelry for the People, Sub Octo Gallery, Philadelphia (2009); Decorative Resurgence, Rowan University Art Gallery, Glassboro, New Jersey (2009); Laughingstock: Humor in Art and Craft, Luke and Eloy Gallery, Pittsburgh (2008); The Ring Show: Putting the Band Back Together, Georgia Museum of Art, Atlanta, (2008); Composting Good and Evil: Redesign for Sanctimonious Sinners, online virtual exhibition and Savannah College of Art and Design, Georgia (2008); VCU at Pratt, Steuben Galleries, Pratt Institute, Brooklyn (2008); Necklust and the Chocolatiere, Florida Craftsman Gallery, Saint Petersburg (2008); Dix-neuf, Centre International d’Art Contemporain, Pont-Aven, France (2006); Shaped in Metal, Muskegon Museum of Art, Michigan (2006); Fortieth Memorial International Enameling Art Exhibition, Ueno Royal Museum, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo (2006); Gabriel Craig: Vessels and Adornment, Plata y Oro, Kalamazoo, Michigan (2005); and Jewelry + Object, Ann Arbor Art Center, Michigan (2005).

Craig has contributed essays to American Craft and Metalsmith and is the founding editor of the blog Conceptual Metalsmithing. His work has been reviewed in American Craft and Metalsmith.

Theaster Gates received a BS in urban planning and sculpture from Iowa State University (1995); an MA in fine arts and religious studies from the University of Cape Town, South Africa (1998); and an interdisciplinary MS degree in urban planning, studio art, and religious studies at Iowa State University (2005).

Gates’s piece Cosmology ofYard appeared in the 2010 Whitney Biennial at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. A solo exhibition, titled Resurrecting Dave, is on view at the Milwaukee Art Museum until August 2010. Gates received a John Michael Kohler Arts in Industry Residency (2010). He is currently the coordinator of arts programming, Office of the Provost, University of Chicago.

Among Gates’s many solo exhibitions and performances are An Afternoon of Art and Performance, Little Black Pearl, Chicago (2009); On Another Note: Extractions from the Chicago Jazz Archive Collection, DOVA Temporary, University of Chicago (2009); Temple Exercises, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (2009); Holiness in Three Parts, Boots Contemporary Gallery, Saint Louis (2009); and Plate Convergence, Hyde Part Art Center, Chicago (2007).

Gates’s artistic practice extends beyond the conventional exhibition space to become a kind of public activism. Because of this, his artistic practice is often realized in performances and lectures, which have included Shacks, Sheds, and Other Small Spaces, University of North Carolina, Charlotte (2009); The Dorchester Project Symposium: “Accidental Publics,” Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois (2009); UnpackingYamaguchi: Myth, Ecstasy, and the Black Church, School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2009); an exhibition and dinner titled Tea Shacks, Collard Greens, and the Preservation of Soul from the Center for the Proliferation of Afro-Asian Artifacts, Chicago Art District Gallery (2009); and Dinner at Seven, a collaboration with chef Maripa Abella, Rodan Restaurant, Chicago (2006). He is also renovating a building on his block on Chicago’s South Side to turn it into a library for books and glass lantern slides and a soul food/ Asian fusion kitchen serving, as he describes it, “honey dipped, crunchy fried mac-and-cheese unagi rolls and Saki Kool-aid.”

His music collaborative, Theaster Gates and the Black Monks of Mississippi, has performed at exhibitions and events, including Heartland at the Smart Museum of Art, University of Chicago, and the Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, the Netherlands (2008–9); Demise of the South Side Community Art Center, South Side Community Art Center, Chicago (2009); and the Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago (2008).

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Cynthia Giachetti American, born 1964 Lives and works in Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Cynthia Giachetti received her BFA from the University of California, Davis (2002), and her MFA from Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge (2007). She has also studied at the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts in Deer Isle, Maine (2003).

Giachetti has participated in many exhibitions, including NCECA Clay National, Arizona State University Art Museum (2009); a solo installation at Project Row House, Houston (2009); Art Venture, Louisiana Art Works, New Orleans (2008); Icons, Woman Made Gallery, Chicago (2008); No Dead Artists, Jonathan Ferrara Gallery, New Orleans (2008); Bling, Santa Fe Clay (2008); Full and Spare, Florida State University Fine Arts Museum, Tallahassee (2008); What Remains, Alfred C. Glassell Jr. Exhibitions Gallery—Shaw Center for the Arts, Baton Rouge, Louisiana (2007); Post Millennium Exponent, NCECA 2007, Louisville, Kentucky (2007); Redefining the Figure, Sebastopol Center for the Arts, California (2001); Fourteenth Annual Ceramic Sculpture Conference, Natsoulas Gallery, Davis, California (2003); California Clay Competition, Artery, Davis, California (2002). She has performed Butterfly Symphony at Louisiana State University (2006) and Bust at the University of California, Davis (2004). She has been awarded the Artist Grant from Project Row Houses, Houston (2008), and the Laguna Clay Award, California Clay Competition (2002). Her work will be featured in an upcoming issue of Ceramics Monthly.

Ryan Gothrup American, born 1977 Lives and works in Richmond, Virginia

Ryan Gothrup received a BFA in crafts with a concentration in glass from Kent State University (2004) and an MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University in craft/material studies with a glass concentration (2009).

He completed coursework in sculpture and ceramics at the Herron School of Art in Indianapolis (1999–2001) and in glassblowing at the Indianapolis Art Center (1998–2002). He has been awarded a fellowship by the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond (2008).

He taught for six years at the Indianapolis Art Center (2001–7) and continues to teach summer classes at Virginia Commonwealth University.

Gothrup’s work has appeared in group exhibitions such as How Is This Glass? Post Glass Artists/Glass Guerillas, Glass Art Conference, Corning, New York (2009); Art of Glass: Generations, Visual Arts Center, Portsmouth, Virginia (2009); Blend, FAB Gallery, Richmond, Virginia (2009); Slight of Hand Show, Gallery 5, Richmond, Virginia (2009); American Craft Council

Show, Baltimore Convention Center (2008); Domestic Separation, FAB Gallery, Richmond, Virginia (2007); Picture Windows 2005: Urban Interpretation, organized

by Public Art Indianapolis (2005); Vessel: A Glass Exhibition at the Historic School 30, Indianapolis (2005); and Craftforms at Wayne Art Center, Pennsylvania (2002).

Sabrina Gschwandtner American, born 1977 Lives and works in New York

Sabrina Gschwandtner received a BA in art and semiotics from Brown University (2000) and an MFA from Bard College (2007). In 1998 she pursued video studies at the Sommerakademie für bildende Kunst (International Summer Academy in Fine Art) in Salzburg, Austria, where she studied with Valie Export. She is also the founding editor and publisher of a limited-edition periodical titled KnitKnit (2002–7).

Gschwandtner has had several solo exhibitions, including Watch and See, Gustavsbergs Konsthall, Sweden (2009); Without Looking, Reijmyre Konsthall, Sweden (2009); and Bionic Threads (with Christy Matson), Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago (2007). Her group exhibitions include Motion Blur: American Craft, Gustavsbergs Konsthall, Sweden (2009); Dorothy Saxe Invitational, Contemporary Jewish Museum, San Francisco (2009); Craftwerk 2.0, Jonkoping Ians Museum, Sweden (2009); Gestures of Resistance, Gray Matters in conjunction with the College Art Association Conference, Dallas (2008); Thread as Line, Ellipse Art Center, Arlington, Virginia (2008); Radical Lace and Subversive Knitting, Museum of Arts and Design, New York (traveled 2007–8); Craftivism: Reclaiming Craft and Creating Community, Lawton Gallery, University of Wisconsin, Green Bay (2008); Common Threads, organized by Confederation Centre Art Gallery and the Illingworth Kerr Gallery (traveled 2007–8); Material Pursuits, Robert Hull Fleming Museum, Burlington, Vermont (2007); Pricked: Extreme Embroidery, Museum of Arts and Design, New York (2007); A Fold in the Fabric, LMAK Projects, New York (2006); Group Loop, G Fine Art, Washington, D.C. (2005); Performa 05: First Biennial of Visual Art Performance, Artists Space, New York (2005); In Practice, Sculpture Center, Long Island City, New York (2004); Cram Session: Dark Matter, Baltimore Museum of Art (2004).

Gschwandtner has presented lectures titled “On Craftivism,” Museum of World Culture, Goteborg, Sweden (2009); “Making Craft Matter: Feminism and Politics in Handmade Art,” Harvard University (2008); and “Crafting Protest,” Vera List Center for Art and Politics at the New School, New York (2008), among many others. She has had residencies at the International Artists’ Studio Program in Stockholm (2009); the Museum of Arts and Design, New York (2009); and MacDowell Colony, Peterborough, New Hampshire

(2007, 2004). She also received a Sculpture Center Emerging Artist Fellowship (2004) and a Weston Award for Excellence in the Arts (1999).

Gschwandtner’s work has been reviewed in publications such as Craft (UK), Fiberarts, Modern Painters, and Artforum. She was also profiled on National Public Radio. Gschwandtner has contributed essays to the Journal of Modern Craft and American Craft, among others. She has curated exhibitions and film screenings, including No Idle Hands at Light Industry, Brooklyn, (2008); The Handmade Goes Digital, Museum of Arts and Design, New York (2007); The Workmanship of Risk, Richard F. Brush Art Gallery, St. Lawrence University, Canton, New York (2006); Political Textiles, ThreeWalls, Chicago (2004); and Knitted Light, Ocularis, Brooklyn (2003).

Lauren Kalman American, born 1980 Lives and works in Providence, Rhode Island

Lauren Kalman received a BFA in metals from the Massachusetts College of Art (2002) and an MFA from Ohio State University, Columbus (2006). She has also studied at the Penland School of Craft, for glass (2004); Pilchuck Glass School, for glass (2003); the Logo Foundation, for robotics (2003); Peters Valley Craft Center, for stone setting (2001); the Cleveland Institute of Art, for jewelry (1998); and Cleveland State University, for art history (1998). She teaches at the Rhode Island School of Design, Northeastern University, and Brown University.

In 2010 Kalman has a solo exhibition at the Sasol Art Museum, Stellenbosch, South Africa. Her work will also appear in the group invitational exhibition Extreme Beauty at the Glassell School of Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Other solo exhibitions include Blooms, Efflorescence, and Other Dermatological Embellishments, University of Massachusetts, Lowell, and Museum of Surgical Science, Chicago (2009–10); SOFA Chicago with Sienna Gallery (2009); New Work, Sienna Gallery, Lenox, Massachusetts (2009); Gilded Affection, Sewanee: The University of the South, Tennessee (2009); Hard Wear, Sienna Gallery, Lenox, Massachusetts (2008); Corpus, Figure, Skate, Cheekwood Museum of Art, Nashville (2008); A Pretty Little Trick, Window into Sculpture Series, Sculpture Center, Cleveland (2008); Hard Wear, Recoleta Center, Buenos Aires, in conjunction with the Sixth Encuentro, Corpoliticas/Body Politics in the Americas (2008); Dress Up; Dress Down, Medicine Factory, Memphis (2007); Memento Mori, Extension Gallery, Mercerville, New Jersey (2003).

Kalman’s work has been in group exhibitions including Elusive Matter, Museum of Contemporary Craft, Portland, Oregon (2009); Image, Imaged, Imagined, Fort Point Art Center, Boston (2009); The Stimulus Project, Sienna Gallery, Lenox, Massachusetts

(2009); RE/ACTIONS, Craft Alliance, Saint Louis (2009); Transitions/Transformations, Eastern Oregon University, La Grande (2009); Bridge Art Fair, Digital Media Lounge, Catalina Hotel, Miami (2008); Body Prop, University of Northern Iowa Gallery of Art, Cedar Falls (2008); In Situ, Sandra and David Bakalar Gallery, Massachusetts College of Art, Boston (2007); Southern 60 Second Video Festival, traveling, organized by Fugitive Projects, Nashville (2007); On a Pedestal, Off the Wall, Sculpture Center, Cleveland (2007); Misdemeanor, Spaces Gallery, Cleveland (2006); Parameters of Preciousness, Gahlberg Gallery, College of DuPage, Glen Ellyn, Illinois (2006); Metal and Otherwise, Florida Craftsmen Gallery, Saint Petersburg (2004); Evocative Objects, Banister Gallery, Rhode Island College, Providence (2003); Twenty-fourth Annual Contemporary Crafts, Mesa Arts Center,Arizona (2002).

In summer 2009 she contributed an essay titled “Dossier: South Africa,” on the state of studio jewelry in South Africa, to Metalsmith. Her work has been reviewed in American Craft and Metalsmith.

Christy Matson American, born 1979 Lives and works in Chicago

Christy Matson received a BFA in fiber from the University of Washington (2001) and an MFA in textiles from California College of the Arts (2005). She is currently an assistant professor of fiber and material studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and taught formerly at the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts (2006).

In 2010 Matson is participating in Wind/Rewind/ Weave, Knoxville Museum of Art, Tennessee, and The New Materiality: Digital Dialogues at the Boundaries of Contemporary Craft, Fuller Craft Museum, Brockton, Massachusetts.

Matson’s work has been exhibited in solo and twoperson exhibitions including Between Fiction and Make Believe, LivingRoom Gallery, Chicago (2009); Plain Weave Variations, FAB Gallery, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond (2007); Bionic Threads (with Sabrina Gschwandtner), Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago (2007); Decode (with Jason Van Anden), Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild, Pittsburgh (2007).

Group exhibitions featuring Matson’s work include Psychic Reality, Heaven Gallery, Chicago (2009); Vinosonic, Experimental Sound Studio, Chicago (2009); NEXT: Invitational Exhibition of Emerging Art, ThreeWalls, Chicago (2009); Inspired Design, Center for Craft, Creativity and Design, Hendersonville, North Carolina (2008–9); Grounded (in conjunction with NPR’s exhibition FRELAB), Kavi Gupta Gallery, Chicago (2008); Improv Performance, South Bay Talent Center (a project by Jon Brumit), San Jose, California (2008); Resounding the Environment, Evanston Art

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Cynthia Giachetti American, born 1964 Lives and works in Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Cynthia Giachetti received her BFA from the University of California, Davis (2002), and her MFA from Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge (2007). She has also studied at the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts in Deer Isle, Maine (2003).

Giachetti has participated in many exhibitions, including NCECA Clay National, Arizona State University Art Museum (2009); a solo installation at Project Row House, Houston (2009); Art Venture, Louisiana Art Works, New Orleans (2008); Icons, Woman Made Gallery, Chicago (2008); No Dead Artists, Jonathan Ferrara Gallery, New Orleans (2008); Bling, Santa Fe Clay (2008); Full and Spare, Florida State University Fine Arts Museum, Tallahassee (2008); What Remains, Alfred C. Glassell Jr. Exhibitions Gallery—Shaw Center for the Arts, Baton Rouge, Louisiana (2007); Post Millennium Exponent, NCECA 2007, Louisville, Kentucky (2007); Redefining the Figure, Sebastopol Center for the Arts, California (2001); Fourteenth Annual Ceramic Sculpture Conference, Natsoulas Gallery, Davis, California (2003); California Clay Competition, Artery, Davis, California (2002). She has performed Butterfly Symphony at Louisiana State University (2006) and Bust at the University of California, Davis (2004). She has been awarded the Artist Grant from Project Row Houses, Houston (2008), and the Laguna Clay Award, California Clay Competition (2002). Her work will be featured in an upcoming issue of Ceramics Monthly.

Ryan Gothrup American, born 1977 Lives and works in Richmond, Virginia

Ryan Gothrup received a BFA in crafts with a concentration in glass from Kent State University (2004) and an MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University in craft/material studies with a glass concentration (2009).

He completed coursework in sculpture and ceramics at the Herron School of Art in Indianapolis (1999–2001) and in glassblowing at the Indianapolis Art Center (1998–2002). He has been awarded a fellowship by the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond (2008).

He taught for six years at the Indianapolis Art Center (2001–7) and continues to teach summer classes at Virginia Commonwealth University.

Gothrup’s work has appeared in group exhibitions such as How Is This Glass? Post Glass Artists/Glass Guerillas, Glass Art Conference, Corning, New York (2009); Art of Glass: Generations, Visual Arts Center, Portsmouth, Virginia (2009); Blend, FAB Gallery, Richmond, Virginia (2009); Slight of Hand Show, Gallery 5, Richmond, Virginia (2009); American Craft Council

Show, Baltimore Convention Center (2008); Domestic Separation, FAB Gallery, Richmond, Virginia (2007); Picture Windows 2005: Urban Interpretation, organized

by Public Art Indianapolis (2005); Vessel: A Glass Exhibition at the Historic School 30, Indianapolis (2005); and Craftforms at Wayne Art Center, Pennsylvania (2002).

Sabrina Gschwandtner American, born 1977 Lives and works in New York

Sabrina Gschwandtner received a BA in art and semiotics from Brown University (2000) and an MFA from Bard College (2007). In 1998 she pursued video studies at the Sommerakademie für bildende Kunst (International Summer Academy in Fine Art) in Salzburg, Austria, where she studied with Valie Export. She is also the founding editor and publisher of a limited-edition periodical titled KnitKnit (2002–7).

Gschwandtner has had several solo exhibitions, including Watch and See, Gustavsbergs Konsthall, Sweden (2009); Without Looking, Reijmyre Konsthall, Sweden (2009); and Bionic Threads (with Christy Matson), Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago (2007). Her group exhibitions include Motion Blur: American Craft, Gustavsbergs Konsthall, Sweden (2009); Dorothy Saxe Invitational, Contemporary Jewish Museum, San Francisco (2009); Craftwerk 2.0, Jonkoping Ians Museum, Sweden (2009); Gestures of Resistance, Gray Matters in conjunction with the College Art Association Conference, Dallas (2008); Thread as Line, Ellipse Art Center, Arlington, Virginia (2008); Radical Lace and Subversive Knitting, Museum of Arts and Design, New York (traveled 2007–8); Craftivism: Reclaiming Craft and Creating Community, Lawton Gallery, University of Wisconsin, Green Bay (2008); Common Threads, organized by Confederation Centre Art Gallery and the Illingworth Kerr Gallery (traveled 2007–8); Material Pursuits, Robert Hull Fleming Museum, Burlington, Vermont (2007); Pricked: Extreme Embroidery, Museum of Arts and Design, New York (2007); A Fold in the Fabric, LMAK Projects, New York (2006); Group Loop, G Fine Art, Washington, D.C. (2005); Performa 05: First Biennial of Visual Art Performance, Artists Space, New York (2005); In Practice, Sculpture Center, Long Island City, New York (2004); Cram Session: Dark Matter, Baltimore Museum of Art (2004).

Gschwandtner has presented lectures titled “On Craftivism,” Museum of World Culture, Goteborg, Sweden (2009); “Making Craft Matter: Feminism and Politics in Handmade Art,” Harvard University (2008); and “Crafting Protest,” Vera List Center for Art and Politics at the New School, New York (2008), among many others. She has had residencies at the International Artists’ Studio Program in Stockholm (2009); the Museum of Arts and Design, New York (2009); and MacDowell Colony, Peterborough, New Hampshire

(2007, 2004). She also received a Sculpture Center Emerging Artist Fellowship (2004) and a Weston Award for Excellence in the Arts (1999).

Gschwandtner’s work has been reviewed in publications such as Craft (UK), Fiberarts, Modern Painters, and Artforum. She was also profiled on National Public Radio. Gschwandtner has contributed essays to the Journal of Modern Craft and American Craft, among others. She has curated exhibitions and film screenings, including No Idle Hands at Light Industry, Brooklyn, (2008); The Handmade Goes Digital, Museum of Arts and Design, New York (2007); The Workmanship of Risk, Richard F. Brush Art Gallery, St. Lawrence University, Canton, New York (2006); Political Textiles, ThreeWalls, Chicago (2004); and Knitted Light, Ocularis, Brooklyn (2003).

Lauren Kalman American, born 1980 Lives and works in Providence, Rhode Island

Lauren Kalman received a BFA in metals from the Massachusetts College of Art (2002) and an MFA from Ohio State University, Columbus (2006). She has also studied at the Penland School of Craft, for glass (2004); Pilchuck Glass School, for glass (2003); the Logo Foundation, for robotics (2003); Peters Valley Craft Center, for stone setting (2001); the Cleveland Institute of Art, for jewelry (1998); and Cleveland State University, for art history (1998). She teaches at the Rhode Island School of Design, Northeastern University, and Brown University.

In 2010 Kalman has a solo exhibition at the Sasol Art Museum, Stellenbosch, South Africa. Her work will also appear in the group invitational exhibition Extreme Beauty at the Glassell School of Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Other solo exhibitions include Blooms, Efflorescence, and Other Dermatological Embellishments, University of Massachusetts, Lowell, and Museum of Surgical Science, Chicago (2009–10); SOFA Chicago with Sienna Gallery (2009); New Work, Sienna Gallery, Lenox, Massachusetts (2009); Gilded Affection, Sewanee: The University of the South, Tennessee (2009); Hard Wear, Sienna Gallery, Lenox, Massachusetts (2008); Corpus, Figure, Skate, Cheekwood Museum of Art, Nashville (2008); A Pretty Little Trick, Window into Sculpture Series, Sculpture Center, Cleveland (2008); Hard Wear, Recoleta Center, Buenos Aires, in conjunction with the Sixth Encuentro, Corpoliticas/Body Politics in the Americas (2008); Dress Up; Dress Down, Medicine Factory, Memphis (2007); Memento Mori, Extension Gallery, Mercerville, New Jersey (2003).

Kalman’s work has been in group exhibitions including Elusive Matter, Museum of Contemporary Craft, Portland, Oregon (2009); Image, Imaged, Imagined, Fort Point Art Center, Boston (2009); The Stimulus Project, Sienna Gallery, Lenox, Massachusetts

(2009); RE/ACTIONS, Craft Alliance, Saint Louis (2009); Transitions/Transformations, Eastern Oregon University, La Grande (2009); Bridge Art Fair, Digital Media Lounge, Catalina Hotel, Miami (2008); Body Prop, University of Northern Iowa Gallery of Art, Cedar Falls (2008); In Situ, Sandra and David Bakalar Gallery, Massachusetts College of Art, Boston (2007); Southern 60 Second Video Festival, traveling, organized by Fugitive Projects, Nashville (2007); On a Pedestal, Off the Wall, Sculpture Center, Cleveland (2007); Misdemeanor, Spaces Gallery, Cleveland (2006); Parameters of Preciousness, Gahlberg Gallery, College of DuPage, Glen Ellyn, Illinois (2006); Metal and Otherwise, Florida Craftsmen Gallery, Saint Petersburg (2004); Evocative Objects, Banister Gallery, Rhode Island College, Providence (2003); Twenty-fourth Annual Contemporary Crafts, Mesa Arts Center,Arizona (2002).

In summer 2009 she contributed an essay titled “Dossier: South Africa,” on the state of studio jewelry in South Africa, to Metalsmith. Her work has been reviewed in American Craft and Metalsmith.

Christy Matson American, born 1979 Lives and works in Chicago

Christy Matson received a BFA in fiber from the University of Washington (2001) and an MFA in textiles from California College of the Arts (2005). She is currently an assistant professor of fiber and material studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and taught formerly at the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts (2006).

In 2010 Matson is participating in Wind/Rewind/ Weave, Knoxville Museum of Art, Tennessee, and The New Materiality: Digital Dialogues at the Boundaries of Contemporary Craft, Fuller Craft Museum, Brockton, Massachusetts.

Matson’s work has been exhibited in solo and twoperson exhibitions including Between Fiction and Make Believe, LivingRoom Gallery, Chicago (2009); Plain Weave Variations, FAB Gallery, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond (2007); Bionic Threads (with Sabrina Gschwandtner), Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago (2007); Decode (with Jason Van Anden), Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild, Pittsburgh (2007).

Group exhibitions featuring Matson’s work include Psychic Reality, Heaven Gallery, Chicago (2009); Vinosonic, Experimental Sound Studio, Chicago (2009); NEXT: Invitational Exhibition of Emerging Art, ThreeWalls, Chicago (2009); Inspired Design, Center for Craft, Creativity and Design, Hendersonville, North Carolina (2008–9); Grounded (in conjunction with NPR’s exhibition FRELAB), Kavi Gupta Gallery, Chicago (2008); Improv Performance, South Bay Talent Center (a project by Jon Brumit), San Jose, California (2008); Resounding the Environment, Evanston Art

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Center, Illinois (2008); Beats per Minute, Museum of Craft and Folk Art, San Francisco (2007); Threads, Johansson Projects, Oakland, California (2007); Wide Examination, M. K. Ciurlionis National Museum of Art, Kaunas, Lithuania (2007); Innovative Weaving, Mills Building, San Francisco (2007); Dressing Light (in collaboration with Anke Loh), Chicago Cultural Center (2006); Installation/Innovation: Textile Art in the Twenty-first Century, San Francisco Museum of Craft and Design (2006); Critical Wetwear, Isabel Percy West Gallery, Oakland, California (2005); Textiles Is a State of Mind, South Gallery, Oakland, California (2005); Digital Origins: Emerging American Textile Artists, Eyedrum Gallery, Atlanta (2004); Material Matters, Playspace Gallery, San Francisco (2004); Rhythm of Crochet, traveling, organized by the Crochet Guild of America (2003).

Matson’s work has been reviewed in American Craft and Fiberarts. She has been granted awards and honors including an Oriole Mill residency, Hendersonville, North Carolina (2009); a Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Biennial Award nomination (2009, 2007); Premio Valcellina, International Contemporary Textile/ Fiber Art Competition, Maniago, Italy (2008); City of Chicago, CAAP Artist Grant (2008); Harvestworks: Digital New Media Center Residency, New York (2006); and a residency at the Experimental Sound Studio, Chicago (2006).

James Melchert American, born 1930 Lives and works in Oakland

James Melchert received a BA from Princeton University (1952); an MA from the University of Chicago (1957); and an MA from the University of California, Berkeley (1961). He has held teaching positions at the San Francisco Art Institute (1961–65) and the University of California, Berkeley (1965–92), and was the director of the American Academy in Rome (1984–88) and the National Endowment for the Arts, Visual Arts Program (1977–81).

Melchert has had solo exhibitions at Gallery Paule Anglim, San Francisco (2008, 2005, 2003); Paul Kotula Projects, Detroit (2007, 2003, 2001, 1999, 1998, 1995, 1994); American University Museum, Washington, D.C. (2006); Fresno Art Museum, California (2005); Revolution Gallery, Detroit (2003, 1998, 1995, 1994); European Ceramic Work Centre, ’s-Hertogenbosch, the Netherlands (1998); Fabric Workshop, Philadelphia (1992); Holly Solomon Gallery, New York (1991); San Francisco Art Institute (1981); Gallerie Fignal, Amsterdam (1978); San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (1975); San Francisco Art Institute (1970); and Richmond Art Center, California (1961).

He has participated in numerous group exhibitions, including Wet and Leatherhard, Lawrimore Project, Seattle (2010); A Secret Life of Clay, from Gauguin to Gormley, Tate Modern, Liverpool (2004); Contemporary American Ceramics (1950–1990), Aichi Prefecture Ceramics Museum and National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto, Japan (2004); Bay Area Now 3, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco (2002); World Contemporary Ceramics, Ichon World Ceramic Center, Korea (2001); Color and Fire: Defining Moments in Contemporary Ceramics, Los Angeles County Museum of Art (2000); In the Spirit of John Cage, JerniganWicker Gallery, San Francisco (1992); San Francisco Bay Area, Drawing Center, New York (1986); California Painting and Sculpture, National Museum of American Art, Washington, D.C. (1977); Contemporary Ceramic Art, National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto, Japan (1972); Documenta 5, Kassel, Germany (1972); Annual Exhibition of Painting and Sculpture, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (1970, 1969, 1966); The Spirit of Comics, Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia (1969); Abstract Expressionist Ceramics, University of California, Irvine (1966); and Work in Clay

by Six Artists, San Francisco Art Institute (1962).

Melchert has received numerous honors, including keynote speaker, Clay Studio, Philadelphia (2000); visiting artist, European Ceramics Work Centre, ’s-Hertogenbosch, the Netherlands (1998); Award for Design Collaboration, Boston Society of Architects (1995); Citation for Distinguished Service in the Visual Arts, National Association of Schools of Art and Design (1993); honorary doctorate, Maryland Institute, College of Art (1993); honorary fellowship, American Craft Council (1988); honorary doctorate, San Francisco Art Institute (1984); honorary fellowship, National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts (1978); artist fellowship, National Endowment for the Arts (1973); Adeline Kent Award, San Francisco Art Institute (1970); and the Louis Comfort Tiffany Fellowship (1964).

Melchert’s work is in the collections of the National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto; Museum of Arts and Design, New York; Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; and Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.

Yuka Otani Japanese, born 1978 Lives and works in New York

Yuka Otani received a BFA from Tama Art University, Tokyo (2000), and an MFA from Rhode Island School of Design (2008). She has had several solo exhibitions, including Irrationally Exuberant, Gallery Catacomb, Central Falls, Rhode Island (2009); Party Is Over, TAP Room, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence (2008); and Out of Pod, Morita Bank, Fukui, Japan (2004).

In the beginning of 2010 Otani participated in Grey Market Pop-Up Gallery: Earth, Fire, Wind, Water, Heart, Lower East Side Dance Academy, New York.

Other group exhibitions include Objective Affection at BOFFO, Brooklyn (2009); BIGG: Breakthrough Ideas in Global Glass, OSU Urban Arts Space, Columbus, Ohio (2009); Related Process, Gallery 579, New York (2009); Open Video Studio (OVS) No. 7, CRG Gallery, New York (2008); Wight Biennale, University of California, Los Angeles (2008); Eidolon: Exploring the Ephemeral, Three Rivers Art Festival Gallery, Pittsburgh (2007); RISD Triennale, Woods Gerry Gallery, Rhode Island School of Design (2007); VERSUS, Sol Koffler Gallery, Rhode Island School of Design (2006); and Site/Sight, Westminster Gallery, Providence, Rhode Island (2005).

Otani is the recipient of a Chashama North Artist Residency (2008) and a Creative Capital/Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant (2009). Otani was cocurator of How Is This Glass? Post Glass Artists/Glass Guerillas, Glass Art Conference, Corning, New York (2009), and curator of Performance Night at the TAP Room at the Rhode Island School of Design (2009)

Sheila Pepe American, born 1959 Lives and works in Brooklyn

Sheila Pepe received a BA from Albertus Magnus College, New Haven, Connecticut (1981); a BFA in ceramics from Massachusetts College of Art, Boston (1983); and an MFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University, Boston (1995). She also studied blacksmithing at the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, Deer Isle, Maine (1984), and completed a residency at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Skowhegan, Maine, (1994). Pepe is currently the assistant chair of fine arts at Pratt Institute, Brooklyn.

Pepe has had many solo exhibitions, including Yo Mama: Sheila Pepe and Friends, Dust Gallery, Las Vegas (2009); Common Sense, testsite, Fluent-Collaborative, Austin, Texas (2009); Redhook at Bedford Terrace, Smith College Museum of Art, Northhampton, Massachusetts (2008); Mine Ayn, Rowland Contemporary, Chicago

(2006); Mind the Gap, University Gallery, University of Massachusetts, Amherst (2005); Tunnel, Jersey City Museum, New Jersey (2005); Two Women: Carrie Moyer and Sheila Pepe, Palm Beach Institute of Contemporary Art, Lakeworth, Florida (2004); Bridge and Tunnel, Susan Inglett Gallery, New York (2004); From Delancey and Clinton, Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts Forum, California (2003); Susan Inglett Gallery, New York (2002); Come Fly with Me, Weatherspoon Art Museum, Greensboro, North Carolina (2002); High Hopes, Clifford Gallery, Colgate University, Hamilton, New York (2002); Shrink, Zilkha Gallery, Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut (2000); Josephine, Thread Waxing Space, New York (2000); R&D, Judy Ann Goldman Fine Art, Boston (1999); Priming the Audience, Bunting Institute, Radcliffe College, Cambridge, Massachusetts (1999); Strings, Things, and Pictures, Mills Gallery, Boston Center for the Arts (1999).

Her work has been included in group exhibitions such as Shared Women, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (2007); Subversive Lace and Radical Knitting, Museum of Arts and Design, New York (2007); When Artists Say We, Artists Space, New York (2006); Decelerate, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, Missouri (2005); Cold Cuts, Rowland Contemporary, Chicago (2005); NeoQueer, CoCA, Seattle (2004); Manic, D.U.M.B.O. Art Center, Brooklyn (2004); The Photogenic, Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia (2004); The Energy Inside, Faulconer Gallery, Grinnell College, Iowa (2001); Greater New York, P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center, Long Island City, New York (2000); Museum School Traveling Scholars 1998, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (1999); Elbowroom, Tredja Sparet, Stockholm (1997); and Gothic, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston (1997).

Her work has been reviewed in Artmedia, Art in America, the NewYork Times, Art Papers, Contemporary, KnitKnit, Sculpture Magazine, Art on Paper, and Flash Art. Pepe has been awarded the Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant (2009); Lower East Side Printshop Publishing Residency, New York (2004); Rhode Island School of Design Professional Development Grant (2004); Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Biennial Award (2000); the ART/OMI International Art Residency (1999); Mary Ingraham Bunting Fellowship at Radcliffe College (1999); and Provincetown Art Association and Museum National Annual Award (1997).

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Center, Illinois (2008); Beats per Minute, Museum of Craft and Folk Art, San Francisco (2007); Threads, Johansson Projects, Oakland, California (2007); Wide Examination, M. K. Ciurlionis National Museum of Art, Kaunas, Lithuania (2007); Innovative Weaving, Mills Building, San Francisco (2007); Dressing Light (in collaboration with Anke Loh), Chicago Cultural Center (2006); Installation/Innovation: Textile Art in the Twenty-first Century, San Francisco Museum of Craft and Design (2006); Critical Wetwear, Isabel Percy West Gallery, Oakland, California (2005); Textiles Is a State of Mind, South Gallery, Oakland, California (2005); Digital Origins: Emerging American Textile Artists, Eyedrum Gallery, Atlanta (2004); Material Matters, Playspace Gallery, San Francisco (2004); Rhythm of Crochet, traveling, organized by the Crochet Guild of America (2003).

Matson’s work has been reviewed in American Craft and Fiberarts. She has been granted awards and honors including an Oriole Mill residency, Hendersonville, North Carolina (2009); a Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Biennial Award nomination (2009, 2007); Premio Valcellina, International Contemporary Textile/ Fiber Art Competition, Maniago, Italy (2008); City of Chicago, CAAP Artist Grant (2008); Harvestworks: Digital New Media Center Residency, New York (2006); and a residency at the Experimental Sound Studio, Chicago (2006).

James Melchert American, born 1930 Lives and works in Oakland

James Melchert received a BA from Princeton University (1952); an MA from the University of Chicago (1957); and an MA from the University of California, Berkeley (1961). He has held teaching positions at the San Francisco Art Institute (1961–65) and the University of California, Berkeley (1965–92), and was the director of the American Academy in Rome (1984–88) and the National Endowment for the Arts, Visual Arts Program (1977–81).

Melchert has had solo exhibitions at Gallery Paule Anglim, San Francisco (2008, 2005, 2003); Paul Kotula Projects, Detroit (2007, 2003, 2001, 1999, 1998, 1995, 1994); American University Museum, Washington, D.C. (2006); Fresno Art Museum, California (2005); Revolution Gallery, Detroit (2003, 1998, 1995, 1994); European Ceramic Work Centre, ’s-Hertogenbosch, the Netherlands (1998); Fabric Workshop, Philadelphia (1992); Holly Solomon Gallery, New York (1991); San Francisco Art Institute (1981); Gallerie Fignal, Amsterdam (1978); San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (1975); San Francisco Art Institute (1970); and Richmond Art Center, California (1961).

He has participated in numerous group exhibitions, including Wet and Leatherhard, Lawrimore Project, Seattle (2010); A Secret Life of Clay, from Gauguin to Gormley, Tate Modern, Liverpool (2004); Contemporary American Ceramics (1950–1990), Aichi Prefecture Ceramics Museum and National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto, Japan (2004); Bay Area Now 3, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco (2002); World Contemporary Ceramics, Ichon World Ceramic Center, Korea (2001); Color and Fire: Defining Moments in Contemporary Ceramics, Los Angeles County Museum of Art (2000); In the Spirit of John Cage, JerniganWicker Gallery, San Francisco (1992); San Francisco Bay Area, Drawing Center, New York (1986); California Painting and Sculpture, National Museum of American Art, Washington, D.C. (1977); Contemporary Ceramic Art, National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto, Japan (1972); Documenta 5, Kassel, Germany (1972); Annual Exhibition of Painting and Sculpture, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (1970, 1969, 1966); The Spirit of Comics, Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia (1969); Abstract Expressionist Ceramics, University of California, Irvine (1966); and Work in Clay

by Six Artists, San Francisco Art Institute (1962).

Melchert has received numerous honors, including keynote speaker, Clay Studio, Philadelphia (2000); visiting artist, European Ceramics Work Centre, ’s-Hertogenbosch, the Netherlands (1998); Award for Design Collaboration, Boston Society of Architects (1995); Citation for Distinguished Service in the Visual Arts, National Association of Schools of Art and Design (1993); honorary doctorate, Maryland Institute, College of Art (1993); honorary fellowship, American Craft Council (1988); honorary doctorate, San Francisco Art Institute (1984); honorary fellowship, National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts (1978); artist fellowship, National Endowment for the Arts (1973); Adeline Kent Award, San Francisco Art Institute (1970); and the Louis Comfort Tiffany Fellowship (1964).

Melchert’s work is in the collections of the National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto; Museum of Arts and Design, New York; Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; and Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.

Yuka Otani Japanese, born 1978 Lives and works in New York

Yuka Otani received a BFA from Tama Art University, Tokyo (2000), and an MFA from Rhode Island School of Design (2008). She has had several solo exhibitions, including Irrationally Exuberant, Gallery Catacomb, Central Falls, Rhode Island (2009); Party Is Over, TAP Room, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence (2008); and Out of Pod, Morita Bank, Fukui, Japan (2004).

In the beginning of 2010 Otani participated in Grey Market Pop-Up Gallery: Earth, Fire, Wind, Water, Heart, Lower East Side Dance Academy, New York.

Other group exhibitions include Objective Affection at BOFFO, Brooklyn (2009); BIGG: Breakthrough Ideas in Global Glass, OSU Urban Arts Space, Columbus, Ohio (2009); Related Process, Gallery 579, New York (2009); Open Video Studio (OVS) No. 7, CRG Gallery, New York (2008); Wight Biennale, University of California, Los Angeles (2008); Eidolon: Exploring the Ephemeral, Three Rivers Art Festival Gallery, Pittsburgh (2007); RISD Triennale, Woods Gerry Gallery, Rhode Island School of Design (2007); VERSUS, Sol Koffler Gallery, Rhode Island School of Design (2006); and Site/Sight, Westminster Gallery, Providence, Rhode Island (2005).

Otani is the recipient of a Chashama North Artist Residency (2008) and a Creative Capital/Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant (2009). Otani was cocurator of How Is This Glass? Post Glass Artists/Glass Guerillas, Glass Art Conference, Corning, New York (2009), and curator of Performance Night at the TAP Room at the Rhode Island School of Design (2009)

Sheila Pepe American, born 1959 Lives and works in Brooklyn

Sheila Pepe received a BA from Albertus Magnus College, New Haven, Connecticut (1981); a BFA in ceramics from Massachusetts College of Art, Boston (1983); and an MFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University, Boston (1995). She also studied blacksmithing at the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, Deer Isle, Maine (1984), and completed a residency at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Skowhegan, Maine, (1994). Pepe is currently the assistant chair of fine arts at Pratt Institute, Brooklyn.

Pepe has had many solo exhibitions, including Yo Mama: Sheila Pepe and Friends, Dust Gallery, Las Vegas (2009); Common Sense, testsite, Fluent-Collaborative, Austin, Texas (2009); Redhook at Bedford Terrace, Smith College Museum of Art, Northhampton, Massachusetts (2008); Mine Ayn, Rowland Contemporary, Chicago

(2006); Mind the Gap, University Gallery, University of Massachusetts, Amherst (2005); Tunnel, Jersey City Museum, New Jersey (2005); Two Women: Carrie Moyer and Sheila Pepe, Palm Beach Institute of Contemporary Art, Lakeworth, Florida (2004); Bridge and Tunnel, Susan Inglett Gallery, New York (2004); From Delancey and Clinton, Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts Forum, California (2003); Susan Inglett Gallery, New York (2002); Come Fly with Me, Weatherspoon Art Museum, Greensboro, North Carolina (2002); High Hopes, Clifford Gallery, Colgate University, Hamilton, New York (2002); Shrink, Zilkha Gallery, Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut (2000); Josephine, Thread Waxing Space, New York (2000); R&D, Judy Ann Goldman Fine Art, Boston (1999); Priming the Audience, Bunting Institute, Radcliffe College, Cambridge, Massachusetts (1999); Strings, Things, and Pictures, Mills Gallery, Boston Center for the Arts (1999).

Her work has been included in group exhibitions such as Shared Women, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (2007); Subversive Lace and Radical Knitting, Museum of Arts and Design, New York (2007); When Artists Say We, Artists Space, New York (2006); Decelerate, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, Missouri (2005); Cold Cuts, Rowland Contemporary, Chicago (2005); NeoQueer, CoCA, Seattle (2004); Manic, D.U.M.B.O. Art Center, Brooklyn (2004); The Photogenic, Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia (2004); The Energy Inside, Faulconer Gallery, Grinnell College, Iowa (2001); Greater New York, P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center, Long Island City, New York (2000); Museum School Traveling Scholars 1998, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (1999); Elbowroom, Tredja Sparet, Stockholm (1997); and Gothic, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston (1997).

Her work has been reviewed in Artmedia, Art in America, the NewYork Times, Art Papers, Contemporary, KnitKnit, Sculpture Magazine, Art on Paper, and Flash Art. Pepe has been awarded the Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant (2009); Lower East Side Printshop Publishing Residency, New York (2004); Rhode Island School of Design Professional Development Grant (2004); Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Biennial Award (2000); the ART/OMI International Art Residency (1999); Mary Ingraham Bunting Fellowship at Radcliffe College (1999); and Provincetown Art Association and Museum National Annual Award (1997).

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Michael Rea American, born 1975 Lives and works in Chicago

Michael Rea received a BS in art education from Northern Illinois University (1999); an MA in sculpture from the University of Wisconsin—Madison (2006); and an MFA in sculpture from the University of Wisconsin— Madison (2007).

Rea’s solo exhibitions include Michael Rea, Phillip Johnson Building, San Francisco (2009); Project Space, Synchronicity, Los Angeles (2008); Wood I, Could I? Contemporary Art Center of Virginia, Virginia Beach (2008); New Works, Co-Prosperity Sphere, Chicago (2007); Grandfather Paradox, Seventh Floor Gallery, Madison, Wisconsin (2007); Fuller Project, Indiana University, Bloomington (2007); Fat Man and Little Boy, Subtitled Hot and Sexy, CIMC Library, University of Wisconsin—Madison (2006); Trivial Pursuit, Butcher Shop / Dogmatic Gallery, Chicago (2006); IYell Because I Care #2, Rockford Art Museum, Illinois (2004); IYell Because I Care, Mutiny, Chicago (2003).

Rea has participated in group exhibitions including The Power of Selection, Western Exhibitions, Chicago (2010); Art Is War, War Is Art, Morgan Art of Papermaking Conservatory and Educational Foundation, Cleveland (2009); Gimme Baby Robots IV, Chicago and Portland, Oregon (2009); Artist Run Chicago, Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago (2009); Trendbeheer, Rotterdam (2009); West, Wester, Westest! Fecal Face Gallery, San Francisco (2008); Chimera Frontiera, Junc Gallery, Los Angeles (2008); Wisconsin Triennial, Madison Museum of Contemporary Art (2007); Selected Media Festival, Heaven Gallery, Chicago (2006); Intimate and Epic, presented by the Great Performers of Illinois at Millennium Park, Chicago (2006); Sweet Baby Meat, OneTen Gallery, Madison, Wisconsin (2006); Art Chicago, Merchandise Mart, Art Expo, Chicago (2006–9); Midwestern Biennial, Rockford Art Museum, Illinois (2004).

Rea has been interviewed by Wired.com and FecalFace.com and reviewed in Bad at Sports. He is currently a lab technician and instructor at Northwestern University.

Anne Wilson American, born 1949 Lives and works in Chicago

Anne Wilson earned a BFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art (1972) and an MFA from California College of the Arts (1976). She is currently professor and chair in the Department of Fiber and Material Studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She has lectured widely at museums and colleges nationally and internationally.

In 2010 Wilson will have a solo exhibition titled Anne Wilson: Wind/ Rewind/ Weave, Knoxville Museum of Art, Tennessee. She has had solo exhibitions at Rhona

Hoffman Gallery, Chicago (2008); Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Brunswick, Maine (2008); Indiana University School of Fine Arts Gallery, Bloomington (2005); Contemporary Arts Museum Houston (2004); OmniArt project space in conjunction with Art Basel Miami Beach (2004); Art Chicago (2004); Roy Boyd Gallery, Chicago (2004); University Art Gallery, San Diego State University (2003); Revolution Gallery, Detroit (2003, 2001); Bakalar Gallery, MassArt, Boston (2002); Aurobora Press, San Francisco (2001); and Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (2000).

Wilson has participated in group exhibitions including Shift: Field of Fluctuation, Twenty-first Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, Japan (2009); Dritto Rovescio, Triennale Design Museum, Milan, Italy (2009); All Over the Map, Kohler Arts Center, Sheboygan, Wisconsin (2009); Out of the Ordinary, Victoria and Albert Museum, London (2007); Radical Lace and Subversive Knitting, Museum of Arts and Design, New York (2007); Alternative Paradise, Twentyfirst Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, Japan (2005–6); Material Difference, Chicago Cultural Center (2006); Perspectives@25: A Quarter Century of New Art in Houston, Contemporary Arts Museum Houston (2004); Soft Edge, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (2004); Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2002); Textures of Memory: The Poetics of Cloth, Angel Row Gallery, Nottingham, England (traveled 1999); Conceptual Textiles: Material Meanings, Kohler Arts Center, Sheboygan, Wisconsin (1998).

Wilson has received awards and grants including the Richard H. Driehaus Foundation’s Individual Artist Award (2008); Artadia, the Fund for Art and Dialogue, Individual Artist Grant (2001); Illinois Arts Council, Artists Fellowship Awards (2001, 1999, 1993, 1987, 1984, 1983); Chicago Artists International Program Grant (1996); Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Biennial Award (1989); Chicago Artists Abroad Grants (1989, 1988); and the National Endowment for the Arts, Visual Arts Fellowships (1988, 1982). She has been awarded residencies at the Herb Alpert Foundation/ Ucross Foundation (2007); Museum of Glass, International Center for Contemporary Art, Tacoma, Washington (2006); Rochester Institute of Technology, New York (2006); Pilchuk Glass School, Stanwood, Washington (2005); Aurobora Press, San Francisco (2001); Australian National University, Canberra School of Art (1996); and University of Wollongong, Australia (1996).

Wilson’s work is included in the collections of the Twenty-first Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, Japan; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Art Institute of Chicago; and Cranbrook Art Museum, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. Reviews of her work have appeared in Artforum, Bad at Sports, Sculpture, American Craft, and Third Text, among others.

Saya Woolfalk Japanese, born 1979 Lives and works in New York

Saya Woolfalk received a BA in visual art and economics from Brown University (2001) and an MFA in sculpture from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2004). She also completed a residency at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (2004) and the Whitney Independent Study Program at the Whitney Museum of American Art (2006).

Woolfalk has had many solo exhibitions, including Empathic Dream Box, Real Art Ways, Hartford, Connecticut (2010); The Institute for the Analysis of Empathy, Koppelman Gallery, Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts (2010); No Place, UB Art Gallery, University at Buffalo, New York (2009); Saya Woolfalk: Three Videos, Paul Robeson Galleries, Rutgers University, Newark (2008); No Place: Wonders from that World, Zg Gallery, Chicago (2007); Jumble Patch: Transitional Love Objects, Heidi Cho Gallery, New York (2005); Trousseaux: Love Object, SubCity, Chicago (2005); Paradise Imagined, 12x12 New Artists/New Work, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, (2004); and Lovescape, Zg Gallery, Chicago (2004).

She has participated in group exhibitions such as Fairy Tales, Monsters, and the Genetic Imagination, Frist Center for the Visual Arts, Nashville, Tennessee (2010); The Playboy Bunny: An American Icon, Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh (2010); Transhuman Conditions, Arlington Arts Center, Virginia (2010); LosingYourself, Maryland Art Place, Baltimore (2010); The Open, Deitch Studios, Long Island City, New York (2009); LosingYourself, Georgia State University,Atlanta (2009); AIM 29: Living and Dreaming, Bronx Museum, New York (2009); Making It, Deutsche Bank Art Gallery, New York (2009); New Intuitions: Artist-in-Residence, Studio Museum in Harlem, New York (2008); Kazuo Ohno 101: ThreeWeek Butoh Parade, Japan Society, New York (2007); Jamaica Flux, Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning, Queens, New York (2007); Yokohama Boogie: Under the Influence, ZAIM, Yokohama, Japan (2007); Young Sculptors Competition, Hiestand Galleries, Miami University, Oxford, Ohio (2007); Whitney ISP, Artists Space, New York (2007); Dead of Winter, Hudson Valley Center of Contemporary Art, Peekskill, New York (2006); Greater NewYork 2005, P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center, Long Island City, New York (2005); and Production of Escapism: A Project by Rashid Johnson, Indianapolis Museum of Contemporary Art (2005).

Woolfalk has received grants and awards including the Puffin Foundation Artist Grant (2009); Fund for Creative Communities, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, New York (2009); Manhattan Community Arts Fund, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, New York (2009); Franklin Furnace Fund Grant for Performance Art (2008); NYFA Fellowship—Cross-Disciplinary/

Performance (2007); Art Matters Grant (2007); Fulbright IIE Grant (2005); Jerome Fellowship, Franconia Sculpture Park (2005); Special Opportunity Stipend, New York Foundation for the Arts (2005); Joan Mitchell Foundation MFA Fellowship (2004); School of the Art Institute MFA Fellowship (2004); and World Studio Foundation Fellowship (2003, 2002).

Woolfalk’s work has been reviewed in publications including the Art 21 Blog, the NewYork Times, W Magazine, Fiberarts Magazine, and Sculpture.

Bohyun Yoon Korean, born 1976 Lives and works in Philadelphia

Bohyun Yoon received a BFA (1999) and an MFA in glass (2001) from Tama Art University, Tokyo. He continued his study in glass at the Rhode Island School of Design, where he earned an MFA (2004). He participated in the International Summer Academy of Fine Art in Salzburg, Austria, in the Public Interventions program with Alfredo Jaar (2004).

Among Yoon’s group exhibitions are Smoke + Mirrors / Shadows + Fog, Hunter College Art Galleries, New York (2010); Objective Affection, Boffo, Brooklyn (2009); Cirque de Verre, Goggle Works, Reading, Pennsylvania (2009); Will It Happen? Elga Wimmer PCC Gallery, New York (2009); Cheongju International Biennale, Cheongju, Korea (2009); The Body Politic, Brooklyn Art Collective, New York (2009); How Is This Glass?

Post Glass Artists/Glass Guerillas, Glass Art Conference, Corning, New York (2009); Nothing Too Much, the Cushion Project: The Stage, Kring, Seoul (2008); Four New Directions, Chazan Gallery, Providence, Rhode Island (2008); Nine Projects for Salzburg, International Summer Academy of Fine Art, Salzburg,Austria (2004); Japanese Glass Exhibition, Yoyogi Seminary, Tokyo (1999).

Yoon has had a number of solo exhibitions, including Boundary, Startline, Tokyo (2008); Shadow Glass Installation, Space Kitchen, Seoul (2001); and Shadow, Space TRY, Tokyo (2001). He has received awards and fellowships from S&R Washington (2008); the Fellows Program for International Research Center for Art, Kyoto University of Art and Design (2004); and the Hayward Prize for Fine Arts, American Austrian Foundation (2004). In 2009 he was an “emerging artist” presenter at the Glass Art Society’s Thirty-ninth Annual Conference in Corning, New York. Yoon teaches periodically at the Tyler School of Art at Temple University.

His work has been published in the Urban Glass Art Quarterly and the New Glass Review.

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Michael Rea American, born 1975 Lives and works in Chicago

Michael Rea received a BS in art education from Northern Illinois University (1999); an MA in sculpture from the University of Wisconsin—Madison (2006); and an MFA in sculpture from the University of Wisconsin— Madison (2007).

Rea’s solo exhibitions include Michael Rea, Phillip Johnson Building, San Francisco (2009); Project Space, Synchronicity, Los Angeles (2008); Wood I, Could I? Contemporary Art Center of Virginia, Virginia Beach (2008); New Works, Co-Prosperity Sphere, Chicago (2007); Grandfather Paradox, Seventh Floor Gallery, Madison, Wisconsin (2007); Fuller Project, Indiana University, Bloomington (2007); Fat Man and Little Boy, Subtitled Hot and Sexy, CIMC Library, University of Wisconsin—Madison (2006); Trivial Pursuit, Butcher Shop / Dogmatic Gallery, Chicago (2006); IYell Because I Care #2, Rockford Art Museum, Illinois (2004); IYell Because I Care, Mutiny, Chicago (2003).

Rea has participated in group exhibitions including The Power of Selection, Western Exhibitions, Chicago (2010); Art Is War, War Is Art, Morgan Art of Papermaking Conservatory and Educational Foundation, Cleveland (2009); Gimme Baby Robots IV, Chicago and Portland, Oregon (2009); Artist Run Chicago, Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago (2009); Trendbeheer, Rotterdam (2009); West, Wester, Westest! Fecal Face Gallery, San Francisco (2008); Chimera Frontiera, Junc Gallery, Los Angeles (2008); Wisconsin Triennial, Madison Museum of Contemporary Art (2007); Selected Media Festival, Heaven Gallery, Chicago (2006); Intimate and Epic, presented by the Great Performers of Illinois at Millennium Park, Chicago (2006); Sweet Baby Meat, OneTen Gallery, Madison, Wisconsin (2006); Art Chicago, Merchandise Mart, Art Expo, Chicago (2006–9); Midwestern Biennial, Rockford Art Museum, Illinois (2004).

Rea has been interviewed by Wired.com and FecalFace.com and reviewed in Bad at Sports. He is currently a lab technician and instructor at Northwestern University.

Anne Wilson American, born 1949 Lives and works in Chicago

Anne Wilson earned a BFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art (1972) and an MFA from California College of the Arts (1976). She is currently professor and chair in the Department of Fiber and Material Studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She has lectured widely at museums and colleges nationally and internationally.

In 2010 Wilson will have a solo exhibition titled Anne Wilson: Wind/ Rewind/ Weave, Knoxville Museum of Art, Tennessee. She has had solo exhibitions at Rhona

Hoffman Gallery, Chicago (2008); Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Brunswick, Maine (2008); Indiana University School of Fine Arts Gallery, Bloomington (2005); Contemporary Arts Museum Houston (2004); OmniArt project space in conjunction with Art Basel Miami Beach (2004); Art Chicago (2004); Roy Boyd Gallery, Chicago (2004); University Art Gallery, San Diego State University (2003); Revolution Gallery, Detroit (2003, 2001); Bakalar Gallery, MassArt, Boston (2002); Aurobora Press, San Francisco (2001); and Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (2000).

Wilson has participated in group exhibitions including Shift: Field of Fluctuation, Twenty-first Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, Japan (2009); Dritto Rovescio, Triennale Design Museum, Milan, Italy (2009); All Over the Map, Kohler Arts Center, Sheboygan, Wisconsin (2009); Out of the Ordinary, Victoria and Albert Museum, London (2007); Radical Lace and Subversive Knitting, Museum of Arts and Design, New York (2007); Alternative Paradise, Twentyfirst Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, Japan (2005–6); Material Difference, Chicago Cultural Center (2006); Perspectives@25: A Quarter Century of New Art in Houston, Contemporary Arts Museum Houston (2004); Soft Edge, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (2004); Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2002); Textures of Memory: The Poetics of Cloth, Angel Row Gallery, Nottingham, England (traveled 1999); Conceptual Textiles: Material Meanings, Kohler Arts Center, Sheboygan, Wisconsin (1998).

Wilson has received awards and grants including the Richard H. Driehaus Foundation’s Individual Artist Award (2008); Artadia, the Fund for Art and Dialogue, Individual Artist Grant (2001); Illinois Arts Council, Artists Fellowship Awards (2001, 1999, 1993, 1987, 1984, 1983); Chicago Artists International Program Grant (1996); Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Biennial Award (1989); Chicago Artists Abroad Grants (1989, 1988); and the National Endowment for the Arts, Visual Arts Fellowships (1988, 1982). She has been awarded residencies at the Herb Alpert Foundation/ Ucross Foundation (2007); Museum of Glass, International Center for Contemporary Art, Tacoma, Washington (2006); Rochester Institute of Technology, New York (2006); Pilchuk Glass School, Stanwood, Washington (2005); Aurobora Press, San Francisco (2001); Australian National University, Canberra School of Art (1996); and University of Wollongong, Australia (1996).

Wilson’s work is included in the collections of the Twenty-first Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, Japan; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Art Institute of Chicago; and Cranbrook Art Museum, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. Reviews of her work have appeared in Artforum, Bad at Sports, Sculpture, American Craft, and Third Text, among others.

Saya Woolfalk Japanese, born 1979 Lives and works in New York

Saya Woolfalk received a BA in visual art and economics from Brown University (2001) and an MFA in sculpture from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2004). She also completed a residency at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (2004) and the Whitney Independent Study Program at the Whitney Museum of American Art (2006).

Woolfalk has had many solo exhibitions, including Empathic Dream Box, Real Art Ways, Hartford, Connecticut (2010); The Institute for the Analysis of Empathy, Koppelman Gallery, Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts (2010); No Place, UB Art Gallery, University at Buffalo, New York (2009); Saya Woolfalk: Three Videos, Paul Robeson Galleries, Rutgers University, Newark (2008); No Place: Wonders from that World, Zg Gallery, Chicago (2007); Jumble Patch: Transitional Love Objects, Heidi Cho Gallery, New York (2005); Trousseaux: Love Object, SubCity, Chicago (2005); Paradise Imagined, 12x12 New Artists/New Work, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, (2004); and Lovescape, Zg Gallery, Chicago (2004).

She has participated in group exhibitions such as Fairy Tales, Monsters, and the Genetic Imagination, Frist Center for the Visual Arts, Nashville, Tennessee (2010); The Playboy Bunny: An American Icon, Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh (2010); Transhuman Conditions, Arlington Arts Center, Virginia (2010); LosingYourself, Maryland Art Place, Baltimore (2010); The Open, Deitch Studios, Long Island City, New York (2009); LosingYourself, Georgia State University,Atlanta (2009); AIM 29: Living and Dreaming, Bronx Museum, New York (2009); Making It, Deutsche Bank Art Gallery, New York (2009); New Intuitions: Artist-in-Residence, Studio Museum in Harlem, New York (2008); Kazuo Ohno 101: ThreeWeek Butoh Parade, Japan Society, New York (2007); Jamaica Flux, Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning, Queens, New York (2007); Yokohama Boogie: Under the Influence, ZAIM, Yokohama, Japan (2007); Young Sculptors Competition, Hiestand Galleries, Miami University, Oxford, Ohio (2007); Whitney ISP, Artists Space, New York (2007); Dead of Winter, Hudson Valley Center of Contemporary Art, Peekskill, New York (2006); Greater NewYork 2005, P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center, Long Island City, New York (2005); and Production of Escapism: A Project by Rashid Johnson, Indianapolis Museum of Contemporary Art (2005).

Woolfalk has received grants and awards including the Puffin Foundation Artist Grant (2009); Fund for Creative Communities, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, New York (2009); Manhattan Community Arts Fund, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, New York (2009); Franklin Furnace Fund Grant for Performance Art (2008); NYFA Fellowship—Cross-Disciplinary/

Performance (2007); Art Matters Grant (2007); Fulbright IIE Grant (2005); Jerome Fellowship, Franconia Sculpture Park (2005); Special Opportunity Stipend, New York Foundation for the Arts (2005); Joan Mitchell Foundation MFA Fellowship (2004); School of the Art Institute MFA Fellowship (2004); and World Studio Foundation Fellowship (2003, 2002).

Woolfalk’s work has been reviewed in publications including the Art 21 Blog, the NewYork Times, W Magazine, Fiberarts Magazine, and Sculpture.

Bohyun Yoon Korean, born 1976 Lives and works in Philadelphia

Bohyun Yoon received a BFA (1999) and an MFA in glass (2001) from Tama Art University, Tokyo. He continued his study in glass at the Rhode Island School of Design, where he earned an MFA (2004). He participated in the International Summer Academy of Fine Art in Salzburg, Austria, in the Public Interventions program with Alfredo Jaar (2004).

Among Yoon’s group exhibitions are Smoke + Mirrors / Shadows + Fog, Hunter College Art Galleries, New York (2010); Objective Affection, Boffo, Brooklyn (2009); Cirque de Verre, Goggle Works, Reading, Pennsylvania (2009); Will It Happen? Elga Wimmer PCC Gallery, New York (2009); Cheongju International Biennale, Cheongju, Korea (2009); The Body Politic, Brooklyn Art Collective, New York (2009); How Is This Glass?

Post Glass Artists/Glass Guerillas, Glass Art Conference, Corning, New York (2009); Nothing Too Much, the Cushion Project: The Stage, Kring, Seoul (2008); Four New Directions, Chazan Gallery, Providence, Rhode Island (2008); Nine Projects for Salzburg, International Summer Academy of Fine Art, Salzburg,Austria (2004); Japanese Glass Exhibition, Yoyogi Seminary, Tokyo (1999).

Yoon has had a number of solo exhibitions, including Boundary, Startline, Tokyo (2008); Shadow Glass Installation, Space Kitchen, Seoul (2001); and Shadow, Space TRY, Tokyo (2001). He has received awards and fellowships from S&R Washington (2008); the Fellows Program for International Research Center for Art, Kyoto University of Art and Design (2004); and the Hayward Prize for Fine Arts, American Austrian Foundation (2004). In 2009 he was an “emerging artist” presenter at the Glass Art Society’s Thirty-ninth Annual Conference in Corning, New York. Yoon teaches periodically at the Tyler School of Art at Temple University.

His work has been published in the Urban Glass Art Quarterly and the New Glass Review.

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Selected Bibliography

General Adamson, Glenn. Thinking through Craft. Oxford: Berg, 2007.

Alfoldy, Sandra, ed. NeoCraft: Modernity and the Crafts.

Halifax, N.S.: Press of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, 2007.

Exhibition Catalogues and Books Featuring Artists in the Exhibition

Le Van, Marthe. Five Hundred Enameled Objects: A Celebration of Color on Metal. New York: Lark Books, 2009.

Beckwith, Naomi. New Intuitions: Artists-in-Residence 2007–08. New York: Studio Museum in Harlem, 2008.

Levine, Faythe, and Cortney Heimerl, eds. Handmade Nation: The Rise of DIY, Art, Craft, and Design. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2008.

Blau, Phyllis, and Eric Vieland. 7 Objects/69/90. Amherst: University Gallery, University of Massachusetts, 1990.

Auther, Elissa. String, Felt, Thread: The Hierarchy of Art and Craft in American Art. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2010.

Bonansinga, Kate. Full and Spare: Ceramics in the Twenty-first Century. Tallahassee: Museum of Fine Arts, Florida State University, 2008.

Dormer, Peter, ed. The Culture of Craft: Status and Future. Manchester, England: Manchester University Press, 1997.

Braathen, Martin. The Price of Everything: Perspectives on the Art Market. New York: Whitney Museum of American Art; New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007.

Fariello, M. Anna, and Paula Owen, eds. Objects and Meaning: New Perspectives on Art and Craft. Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 2004.

Britton Newell, Laurie, ed. Out of the Ordinary: Spectacular Craft. London: V&A Publications and the Crafts Council, 2007.

Gogarty, Amy, Mireille Perron, and Ruth Chambers, eds.

Utopic Impulses: Contemporary Ceramics Practice.

Vancouver, B.C.: Ronsdale Press, 2007.

Callahan, Ashley. The Ring Shows: Then and Now and Putting the Band Back Together. Athens: Georgia Museum of Art, University of Georgia, 2008.

Greenhalgh, Paul, ed. The Persistence of Craft: The Applied Arts Today. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2003.

Cave, Nick, ed. Garbed: Extending the Body: Experiments in Clothing. Madison: Arts Institute, University of Wisconsin, 1999.

Hanaor, Cigalle, Rob Barnard, Natasha Daintry, and Clare Twomey. Breaking the Mould: New Approaches to Ceramics. London: Black Dog, 2007.

Conceptual Textiles: Material Meanings. Sheboygan, Wis.: John Michael Kohler Arts Center, 1998.

Johnson, Jean. Exploring Contemporary Craft: History, Theory, and Critical Writing. Toronto: Coach House Books in association with the Craft Studio at Harbourfront Centre, 2002.

Livingstone, Joan, and John Ploof, eds. The Object of Labor: Art, Cloth, and Cultural Production. Chicago: School of the Art Institute of Chicago Press; Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2007.

Pagel, David. Electric Mud. Houston: Blaffer Gallery, 2009.

Racz, Imogen. Contemporary Crafts. New York: Berg, 2009.

Risatti, Howard. A Theory of Craft: Function and Aesthetic Expression. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2007.

Schaffner, Ingrid, and Jenelle Porter. Dirt on Delight: Impulses That Form Clay. Philadelphia: Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania, 2009.

Schwartz, Judith S., ed. Confrontational Ceramics: The Artist as Social Critic. London: A & C Black, 2008.

Darling, Lowell, et al. Nut Pot Bag; or, Clay without Tears. Davis, Calif.: Art Center of the World, 1971.

Dunbar, Elizabeth. Decelerate. Kansas City, Mo.: Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, 2005.

Gower, Jill Baker, and Jessica Calderwood. Decorative Resurgence: An International Juried Exhibition of Contemporary Jewelry and Metalwork Inspired by Historic Decoration and Ornamentation. Glassboro, N.J.: Rowan University Art Gallery, 2009.

Gschwandtner, Sabrina. KnitKnit: Profiles and Projects from Knitting’s New Wave. New York: Stewart, Tabori & Chang, 2007.

HairStories. Scottsdale, Ariz.: Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, 2003.

Halper, Vicki, and Diane Douglas. Choosing Craft: The Artist’s Viewpoint. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009.

Hammond, Harmony. Lesbian Art in America: A Contemporary History. New York: Rizzoli, 2000.

Harris, Susan, and Jennifer Gross. Drawing the Question/ Drawing a Conclusion. New York: Dorsky Gallery, 1998.

Holt, Steven Skov, and Mara Holt Skov. Manufractured: The Conspicuous Transformation of Everyday Objects.

San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2008.

Lim, Andy ed. The Compendium Finale of Contemporary Jewellers. Cologne and New York: Darling Publications, 2009.

McFadden, David Revere, Jennifer Scanlan, and Jennifer Steifle Edwards. Radical Lace and Subversive Knitting.

New York: Museum of Arts and Design, 2007.

Metcalf, Eugene, and Michael D. Hall. The Ties That Bind: Folk Art in Contemporary American Culture. Cincinnati: Contemporary Arts Center, 1986.

The NCECA 2001 Clay National Exhibition. Rock Hill, S.C.: National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts, 2001.

Newell, Laurie Britton. Out of the Ordinary: Spectacular Craft. London: V&A Publications and the Crafts Council, 2007.

Pajaczkowska, Claire, and Ivan Ward. Shame and Sexuality: Psychoanalysis and Visual Culture. London: Routledge, 2008.

Plested, Lee. Common Threads. Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada: Confederation Centre Art Gallery and Illingworth Kerr Gallery, 2008.

Revere, Alan. Five Hundred Earrings: New Directions in Contemporary Jewelry. New York: Lark Books, 2007.

Rinder, Lawrence. 2002 Biennial Exhibition. New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 2002.

Searle, Karen. Knitting Art: 150 Innovative Works from Eighteen Contemporary Artists. Minneapolis: Voyageur Press, 2008.

Shadur, Beth. Collaborative Vision: The Poetic Dialogue Project. Exhibition catalogue, Chicago Cultural Center.

San Francisco: Blurb, 2008.

Sherman, Sondra. Evocative Objects: Studio Metalsmithing and Jewelry. Providence: Bannister Gallery, Rhode Island College, 2003.

Strawn, Susan. Knitting America: A Glorious Heritage from Warm Socks to High Art. Saint Paul, Minn.: Voyageur Press, 2007.

Strong, Daniel, Milton Severe, Lesley Wright, and Lilly Wei. Energy Inside: Steve Currie, Heide Fasnacht, Erik Levine, Matthew McCaslin, Sheila Pepe. Grinnell, Iowa: Faulconer Gallery, Grinnell College, 2001.

2003 Awards in Painting, Sculpture, Printmaking, Photography, Video, and Craft Media. New York: Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation, 2004.

Monographs Conrad Bakker Conrad Bakker: Objects and Economies: Untitled Projects, 1997–2007. Des Moines: Des Moines Art Center, 2007.

Nick Cave Camper, Fred. Amalgamations: Nick Cave. Allentown, Pa.: Allentown Art Museum, 2000.

Foster, Kenneth J. Nick Cave: Meet Me at the Center of the Earth. San Francisco: Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 2009.

Searle, Karen. Soundsuits: Nick Cave. Helena, Mont.: Holter Museum of Art, 2004.

Cat Chow Kirshner, Judith. The Interpretation of Seams: Works by Cat Chow. Glen Ellyn; Ill.: Gahlberg Gallery, McAninch Arts Center, College of DuPage, 2005. Printed and online brochure, http://www.cod.edu/gallery/catalog/catchow.pdf.

Sonya Clark Rovine, Victoria. African Inspirations: Sculpted Headwear

by Sonya Clark. Iowa City: University of Iowa Museum of Art, 2001.

James Melchert Jim Melchert: Points of View: Slide Projection Pieces.

San Francisco: San Francisco Museum of Art, 1975.

Sheila Pepe Bancroft, Shelly, ed. Strings, Things, and Pictures: Sheila Pepe. Boston: Boston Center for the Arts, 1999.

Gangitano, Lia. Sheila Pepe: Josephine. New York: Thread Waxing Space, 2000 Joy, Jenn, and Judy Pfaff. Sheila Pepe: Mind the Gap. Amherst: University Gallery, Fine Arts Center, University of Massachusetts, 2005.

Anne Wilson Forster, A. B. Anne Wilson:Voices. Ferndale, Mich.: Revolution Gallery, 1998.

Hixson, Kathryn, Lisa Tung, and Tina Yapelli. Anne Wilson: Unfoldings. Boston: Massachusetts College of Art, 2002.

Porges, Tim, and Hattie Gordon. Anne Wilson. Winchester, England: Telos Art Publishing, 2001.

Saya Woolfalk Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics. “Artist Presentations: Ethnography of No Place.” e-misférica 5.2 (Fall 2008), www.hemisphericinstitute.org/eng/ publications/emisferica/5.2/artistpresentation/noplace/ index.html.

124

125

Selected Bibliography

General Adamson, Glenn. Thinking through Craft. Oxford: Berg, 2007.

Alfoldy, Sandra, ed. NeoCraft: Modernity and the Crafts.

Halifax, N.S.: Press of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, 2007.

Exhibition Catalogues and Books Featuring Artists in the Exhibition

Le Van, Marthe. Five Hundred Enameled Objects: A Celebration of Color on Metal. New York: Lark Books, 2009.

Beckwith, Naomi. New Intuitions: Artists-in-Residence 2007–08. New York: Studio Museum in Harlem, 2008.

Levine, Faythe, and Cortney Heimerl, eds. Handmade Nation: The Rise of DIY, Art, Craft, and Design. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2008.

Blau, Phyllis, and Eric Vieland. 7 Objects/69/90. Amherst: University Gallery, University of Massachusetts, 1990.

Auther, Elissa. String, Felt, Thread: The Hierarchy of Art and Craft in American Art. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2010.

Bonansinga, Kate. Full and Spare: Ceramics in the Twenty-first Century. Tallahassee: Museum of Fine Arts, Florida State University, 2008.

Dormer, Peter, ed. The Culture of Craft: Status and Future. Manchester, England: Manchester University Press, 1997.

Braathen, Martin. The Price of Everything: Perspectives on the Art Market. New York: Whitney Museum of American Art; New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007.

Fariello, M. Anna, and Paula Owen, eds. Objects and Meaning: New Perspectives on Art and Craft. Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 2004.

Britton Newell, Laurie, ed. Out of the Ordinary: Spectacular Craft. London: V&A Publications and the Crafts Council, 2007.

Gogarty, Amy, Mireille Perron, and Ruth Chambers, eds.

Utopic Impulses: Contemporary Ceramics Practice.

Vancouver, B.C.: Ronsdale Press, 2007.

Callahan, Ashley. The Ring Shows: Then and Now and Putting the Band Back Together. Athens: Georgia Museum of Art, University of Georgia, 2008.

Greenhalgh, Paul, ed. The Persistence of Craft: The Applied Arts Today. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2003.

Cave, Nick, ed. Garbed: Extending the Body: Experiments in Clothing. Madison: Arts Institute, University of Wisconsin, 1999.

Hanaor, Cigalle, Rob Barnard, Natasha Daintry, and Clare Twomey. Breaking the Mould: New Approaches to Ceramics. London: Black Dog, 2007.

Conceptual Textiles: Material Meanings. Sheboygan, Wis.: John Michael Kohler Arts Center, 1998.

Johnson, Jean. Exploring Contemporary Craft: History, Theory, and Critical Writing. Toronto: Coach House Books in association with the Craft Studio at Harbourfront Centre, 2002.

Livingstone, Joan, and John Ploof, eds. The Object of Labor: Art, Cloth, and Cultural Production. Chicago: School of the Art Institute of Chicago Press; Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2007.

Pagel, David. Electric Mud. Houston: Blaffer Gallery, 2009.

Racz, Imogen. Contemporary Crafts. New York: Berg, 2009.

Risatti, Howard. A Theory of Craft: Function and Aesthetic Expression. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2007.

Schaffner, Ingrid, and Jenelle Porter. Dirt on Delight: Impulses That Form Clay. Philadelphia: Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania, 2009.

Schwartz, Judith S., ed. Confrontational Ceramics: The Artist as Social Critic. London: A & C Black, 2008.

Darling, Lowell, et al. Nut Pot Bag; or, Clay without Tears. Davis, Calif.: Art Center of the World, 1971.

Dunbar, Elizabeth. Decelerate. Kansas City, Mo.: Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, 2005.

Gower, Jill Baker, and Jessica Calderwood. Decorative Resurgence: An International Juried Exhibition of Contemporary Jewelry and Metalwork Inspired by Historic Decoration and Ornamentation. Glassboro, N.J.: Rowan University Art Gallery, 2009.

Gschwandtner, Sabrina. KnitKnit: Profiles and Projects from Knitting’s New Wave. New York: Stewart, Tabori & Chang, 2007.

HairStories. Scottsdale, Ariz.: Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, 2003.

Halper, Vicki, and Diane Douglas. Choosing Craft: The Artist’s Viewpoint. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009.

Hammond, Harmony. Lesbian Art in America: A Contemporary History. New York: Rizzoli, 2000.

Harris, Susan, and Jennifer Gross. Drawing the Question/ Drawing a Conclusion. New York: Dorsky Gallery, 1998.

Holt, Steven Skov, and Mara Holt Skov. Manufractured: The Conspicuous Transformation of Everyday Objects.

San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2008.

Lim, Andy ed. The Compendium Finale of Contemporary Jewellers. Cologne and New York: Darling Publications, 2009.

McFadden, David Revere, Jennifer Scanlan, and Jennifer Steifle Edwards. Radical Lace and Subversive Knitting.

New York: Museum of Arts and Design, 2007.

Metcalf, Eugene, and Michael D. Hall. The Ties That Bind: Folk Art in Contemporary American Culture. Cincinnati: Contemporary Arts Center, 1986.

The NCECA 2001 Clay National Exhibition. Rock Hill, S.C.: National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts, 2001.

Newell, Laurie Britton. Out of the Ordinary: Spectacular Craft. London: V&A Publications and the Crafts Council, 2007.

Pajaczkowska, Claire, and Ivan Ward. Shame and Sexuality: Psychoanalysis and Visual Culture. London: Routledge, 2008.

Plested, Lee. Common Threads. Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada: Confederation Centre Art Gallery and Illingworth Kerr Gallery, 2008.

Revere, Alan. Five Hundred Earrings: New Directions in Contemporary Jewelry. New York: Lark Books, 2007.

Rinder, Lawrence. 2002 Biennial Exhibition. New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 2002.

Searle, Karen. Knitting Art: 150 Innovative Works from Eighteen Contemporary Artists. Minneapolis: Voyageur Press, 2008.

Shadur, Beth. Collaborative Vision: The Poetic Dialogue Project. Exhibition catalogue, Chicago Cultural Center.

San Francisco: Blurb, 2008.

Sherman, Sondra. Evocative Objects: Studio Metalsmithing and Jewelry. Providence: Bannister Gallery, Rhode Island College, 2003.

Strawn, Susan. Knitting America: A Glorious Heritage from Warm Socks to High Art. Saint Paul, Minn.: Voyageur Press, 2007.

Strong, Daniel, Milton Severe, Lesley Wright, and Lilly Wei. Energy Inside: Steve Currie, Heide Fasnacht, Erik Levine, Matthew McCaslin, Sheila Pepe. Grinnell, Iowa: Faulconer Gallery, Grinnell College, 2001.

2003 Awards in Painting, Sculpture, Printmaking, Photography, Video, and Craft Media. New York: Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation, 2004.

Monographs Conrad Bakker Conrad Bakker: Objects and Economies: Untitled Projects, 1997–2007. Des Moines: Des Moines Art Center, 2007.

Nick Cave Camper, Fred. Amalgamations: Nick Cave. Allentown, Pa.: Allentown Art Museum, 2000.

Foster, Kenneth J. Nick Cave: Meet Me at the Center of the Earth. San Francisco: Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 2009.

Searle, Karen. Soundsuits: Nick Cave. Helena, Mont.: Holter Museum of Art, 2004.

Cat Chow Kirshner, Judith. The Interpretation of Seams: Works by Cat Chow. Glen Ellyn; Ill.: Gahlberg Gallery, McAninch Arts Center, College of DuPage, 2005. Printed and online brochure, http://www.cod.edu/gallery/catalog/catchow.pdf.

Sonya Clark Rovine, Victoria. African Inspirations: Sculpted Headwear

by Sonya Clark. Iowa City: University of Iowa Museum of Art, 2001.

James Melchert Jim Melchert: Points of View: Slide Projection Pieces.

San Francisco: San Francisco Museum of Art, 1975.

Sheila Pepe Bancroft, Shelly, ed. Strings, Things, and Pictures: Sheila Pepe. Boston: Boston Center for the Arts, 1999.

Gangitano, Lia. Sheila Pepe: Josephine. New York: Thread Waxing Space, 2000 Joy, Jenn, and Judy Pfaff. Sheila Pepe: Mind the Gap. Amherst: University Gallery, Fine Arts Center, University of Massachusetts, 2005.

Anne Wilson Forster, A. B. Anne Wilson:Voices. Ferndale, Mich.: Revolution Gallery, 1998.

Hixson, Kathryn, Lisa Tung, and Tina Yapelli. Anne Wilson: Unfoldings. Boston: Massachusetts College of Art, 2002.

Porges, Tim, and Hattie Gordon. Anne Wilson. Winchester, England: Telos Art Publishing, 2001.

Saya Woolfalk Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics. “Artist Presentations: Ethnography of No Place.” e-misférica 5.2 (Fall 2008), www.hemisphericinstitute.org/eng/ publications/emisferica/5.2/artistpresentation/noplace/ index.html.

126

127

Contemporary Arts Museum Houston

B OARD OF T RU ST E E S

S TAF F

P HOT OGRAP HY C RE DI T S

July 1, 2009–June 30, 2010

as of March 2010

Yuka Otani: pp. 89–91

Edward R. Allen III, Chairman Darrell Betts Kelli Blanton Deborah Brochstein, Secretary Peter Brown Robert J. Card MD Susie Criner Ruth Dreessen Jonathan B. Fairbanks Martha Finger Deborah A. Fiorito James Furr, Vice President Barbara Gamson William J. Goldberg, Treasurer John F. Guess, Jr. Lynn Herbert Leslie Ballard Hull Louise Jamail Sissy Kempner, President Chad W. Libertus Marley Lott Cabrina Owsley James L. Robertson Howard Robinson Lauren Rottet Kristi Schiller Reginald R. Smith Harry Susman Martha Claire Tompkins Laura Morris Walls David P. Young

Bill Arning, Director Andriano Balajadia, IT Manager/Web Master Tim Barkley, Registrar Quincy Berry, Assistant Gallery Supervisor Cheryl Blissitte, Administrative Assistant, Director’s Office Robert Bowden, Finance Officer Amanda Bredbenner, Development Manager/ Special Events Kenya F. Evans, Gallery Supervisor Natividad Flores, Housekeeping Olivia Junell, Membership and Annual Gifts Coordinator Toby Kamps, Senior Curator Carlos Lama, Education Associate and Teen Council Coordinator Connie McAllister, Communications and Marketing Manager Paula Newton, Director of Education and Public Programs Valerie Cassel Oliver, Curator Sue Pruden, Museum Shop Manager Michael Reed, Assistant Director Victoria Ridgway, Development Coordinator Jeff Shore, Head Preparator Lana Sullivan, Receptionist/Staff Secretary Vanessa Voss, Museum Shop Assistant Justine Waitkus, Curatorial Manager Amber Winsor, Director of Development

Most reproductions are courtesy of the artists or their representatives.

For certain artwork and installation photographs, we have been unable to identify the photographer or copyright holder. We would appreciate notification of additional credits for acknowledgment in future editions.

Courtesy Arts/Industry, John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Sheboygan, Wisconsin: pp. 62, 63

James Prinz, Chicago: back cover; fig. 7; pp. 44–47 (courtesy Jack Shainman Gallery, New York); pp. 49–51 (courtesy Cat Chow)

Courtesy Lora Reynolds Gallery, Austin: pp. 40, 41, 42, 43

Claire Rudd and Kate Watson, courtesy testsite, Austin, Texas: pp. 94, 95

Ying-Yueh Chuang: pp. 64, 66, 67 Chris Coxwell, courtesy R 20th Century Gallery, New York: pp. 36, 37 Gabriel Craig: p. 58 (bottom) Jim Curry, courtesy R 20th Century Gallery, New York: p. 39 Courtesy Fischbach Gallery, New York: fig. 4 Surabhi Ghosh, courtesy Rhonda Hoffman Gallery, Chicago: fig. 12; pp. 101 (top right and bottom), 102, 103 Courtesy Greenwich House Pottery, New York: fig. 1 Evan Heyd, courtesy R 20th Century Gallery, New York: p. 38 Mieke H. Hille: fig. 9; pp. 84, 85, 86, 87 Thom Kendall: p. 93

Jason Peale: p. 65 Sara Pooley, courtesy the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago: fig. 14; p. 61

Sally Ryan, courtesy BSD Gallery, Chicago: pp. 96, 97, 99 Courtesy of Magda Sayeg: fig. 11 Ernst Schneider, Hulton Archive/Getty Images: fig. 2 Evan Snyderman: fig. 10 Faith Stern, courtesy Sheila Hicks: fig. 5 Courtesy the Estate of Lenore Tawney: fig. 3 Courtesy United States Library of Congress, Prints and Photography Division, Washington, D.C.: fig. 8 Abigail Volkmann: pp. 69, 70 Amy Weiks: fig. 13; pp. 57 (bottom), 58 (top), 59

Rachel Lears and Saya Woolfalk: pp. 105–7 Abraham McClurg: pp. 81–83 Tom McInvaille: pp. 52, 53, 55 (top left and bottom right); p. 55 (bottom left and top right, courtesy Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, Wisconsin); p. 54 (courtesy Indianapolis Museum of Art)

C ATALOGU E

Editor: Karen Jacobson Publication coordinators: Valerie Cassel Oliver and Justine Waitkus Designer: Don Quaintance, Public Address Design, Houston Design/production assistant: Elizabeth Frizzell, Public Address Design Typography: Composed in Glypha (display), designed

by Adrian Frutiger, and Rotation (text), designed

by Arthur Ritzel Printing and binding: CS Graphics, Singapore

126

127

Contemporary Arts Museum Houston

B OARD OF T RU ST E E S

S TAF F

P HOT OGRAP HY C RE DI T S

July 1, 2009–June 30, 2010

as of March 2010

Yuka Otani: pp. 89–91

Edward R. Allen III, Chairman Darrell Betts Kelli Blanton Deborah Brochstein, Secretary Peter Brown Robert J. Card MD Susie Criner Ruth Dreessen Jonathan B. Fairbanks Martha Finger Deborah A. Fiorito James Furr, Vice President Barbara Gamson William J. Goldberg, Treasurer John F. Guess, Jr. Lynn Herbert Leslie Ballard Hull Louise Jamail Sissy Kempner, President Chad W. Libertus Marley Lott Cabrina Owsley James L. Robertson Howard Robinson Lauren Rottet Kristi Schiller Reginald R. Smith Harry Susman Martha Claire Tompkins Laura Morris Walls David P. Young

Bill Arning, Director Andriano Balajadia, IT Manager/Web Master Tim Barkley, Registrar Quincy Berry, Assistant Gallery Supervisor Cheryl Blissitte, Administrative Assistant, Director’s Office Robert Bowden, Finance Officer Amanda Bredbenner, Development Manager/ Special Events Kenya F. Evans, Gallery Supervisor Natividad Flores, Housekeeping Olivia Junell, Membership and Annual Gifts Coordinator Toby Kamps, Senior Curator Carlos Lama, Education Associate and Teen Council Coordinator Connie McAllister, Communications and Marketing Manager Paula Newton, Director of Education and Public Programs Valerie Cassel Oliver, Curator Sue Pruden, Museum Shop Manager Michael Reed, Assistant Director Victoria Ridgway, Development Coordinator Jeff Shore, Head Preparator Lana Sullivan, Receptionist/Staff Secretary Vanessa Voss, Museum Shop Assistant Justine Waitkus, Curatorial Manager Amber Winsor, Director of Development

Most reproductions are courtesy of the artists or their representatives.

For certain artwork and installation photographs, we have been unable to identify the photographer or copyright holder. We would appreciate notification of additional credits for acknowledgment in future editions.

Courtesy Arts/Industry, John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Sheboygan, Wisconsin: pp. 62, 63

James Prinz, Chicago: back cover; fig. 7; pp. 44–47 (courtesy Jack Shainman Gallery, New York); pp. 49–51 (courtesy Cat Chow)

Courtesy Lora Reynolds Gallery, Austin: pp. 40, 41, 42, 43

Claire Rudd and Kate Watson, courtesy testsite, Austin, Texas: pp. 94, 95

Ying-Yueh Chuang: pp. 64, 66, 67 Chris Coxwell, courtesy R 20th Century Gallery, New York: pp. 36, 37 Gabriel Craig: p. 58 (bottom) Jim Curry, courtesy R 20th Century Gallery, New York: p. 39 Courtesy Fischbach Gallery, New York: fig. 4 Surabhi Ghosh, courtesy Rhonda Hoffman Gallery, Chicago: fig. 12; pp. 101 (top right and bottom), 102, 103 Courtesy Greenwich House Pottery, New York: fig. 1 Evan Heyd, courtesy R 20th Century Gallery, New York: p. 38 Mieke H. Hille: fig. 9; pp. 84, 85, 86, 87 Thom Kendall: p. 93

Jason Peale: p. 65 Sara Pooley, courtesy the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago: fig. 14; p. 61

Sally Ryan, courtesy BSD Gallery, Chicago: pp. 96, 97, 99 Courtesy of Magda Sayeg: fig. 11 Ernst Schneider, Hulton Archive/Getty Images: fig. 2 Evan Snyderman: fig. 10 Faith Stern, courtesy Sheila Hicks: fig. 5 Courtesy the Estate of Lenore Tawney: fig. 3 Courtesy United States Library of Congress, Prints and Photography Division, Washington, D.C.: fig. 8 Abigail Volkmann: pp. 69, 70 Amy Weiks: fig. 13; pp. 57 (bottom), 58 (top), 59

Rachel Lears and Saya Woolfalk: pp. 105–7 Abraham McClurg: pp. 81–83 Tom McInvaille: pp. 52, 53, 55 (top left and bottom right); p. 55 (bottom left and top right, courtesy Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, Wisconsin); p. 54 (courtesy Indianapolis Museum of Art)

C ATALOGU E

Editor: Karen Jacobson Publication coordinators: Valerie Cassel Oliver and Justine Waitkus Designer: Don Quaintance, Public Address Design, Houston Design/production assistant: Elizabeth Frizzell, Public Address Design Typography: Composed in Glypha (display), designed

by Adrian Frutiger, and Rotation (text), designed

by Arthur Ritzel Printing and binding: CS Graphics, Singapore

128

Contributors

Dr. Glenn Adamson is head of graduate studies and deputy head of research at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. In that capacity, he teaches a graduate course on the history of design run collaboratively with the Royal College of Art. He is the author of Industrial Strength Design: How Brooks Stevens ShapedYour World (Milwaukee Art Museum/MIT Press, 2003). Dr. Adamson’s book Thinking through Craft (V&A Publications/Berg Publishers) was published in October 2007, and his anthology The Craft Reader was published in early 2010. He also coedits the Journal of Modern Craft (Berg Publishers) with Tanya Harrod and Edward S. Cooke Jr. Currently Dr. Adamson is at work on a project about postmodernism for the V&A, to be on view in 2011.

Sarah G. Cassidy is a former intern at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston and a graduate student in critical and curatorial studies at the University of Louisville. She received her BFA in printmaking from the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design in 2004.

As a graduate student, she has been recognized for her outstanding academic achievements. In 2008 she received the Hite Art Institute Assistantship, a one-year curatorial assistantship at the institute. Cassidy has served as an intern at the International Contemporary Art Foundation in Louisville and is currently a research assistant at the Speed Art Museum.

Valerie Cassel Oliver is curator at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, where she has organized Splat Boom Pow! The Influence of Cartoons in Contemporary Art (2003); Double Consciousness: Black Conceptual Art since 1970 (2005); Black Light/White Noise: Sound and Light in Contemporary Art (2007); and most recently Cinema Remixed and Reloaded: Black Women Artists and the Moving Image (with Dr. Andrea Barnwell Brownlee, Spelman College Museum of Fine Arts, 2008). Her forthcoming exhibition projects include the retrospective Benjamin Patterson: Born in the State of Flux/us (2010) and the survey Donald Moffett: Twenty Years (2011), which she is co-organizing with Eric Shiner at the Warhol Museum. Cassel Oliver is the recipient of a 2006 Getty Curatorial Research Fellowship and was among ten fellows selected for the Center for Curatorial Leadership Program in 2009. She serves on the editorial boards for Artl!es and Callaloo: A Journal of African Diaspora Arts and Letters; as an adviser for RxArt, New York, and Charlotte Street Foundation; and on the board of directors for Project Row Houses, Houston.

Namita Gupta Wiggers is curator, Museum of Contemporary Craft in partnership with the Pacific Northwest College of Art, Portland, Oregon. Her curatorial practice combines a background in contemporary art history and theory with studio practice as an art jeweler. She is the author of Unpacking the Collection: Selections from the Museum of Contemporary Craft (2008) and has contributed to such publications as Artl!es, The Journal of Museum Education, and Metalsmith. Selected curatorial projects include Land Art: David Shaner (2010), The Academy Is Full of Craft (2009–10), Transference (2009–10), Call + Response (2009), Manufractured: The Conspicuous Transformation of Everyday Objects (2009), Touching Warms the Art (2008), The Living Room (2007–8), and New Embroidery: NotYour Grandma’s Doily (2006).

128

Contributors

Dr. Glenn Adamson is head of graduate studies and deputy head of research at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. In that capacity, he teaches a graduate course on the history of design run collaboratively with the Royal College of Art. He is the author of Industrial Strength Design: How Brooks Stevens ShapedYour World (Milwaukee Art Museum/MIT Press, 2003). Dr. Adamson’s book Thinking through Craft (V&A Publications/Berg Publishers) was published in October 2007, and his anthology The Craft Reader was published in early 2010. He also coedits the Journal of Modern Craft (Berg Publishers) with Tanya Harrod and Edward S. Cooke Jr. Currently Dr. Adamson is at work on a project about postmodernism for the V&A, to be on view in 2011.

Sarah G. Cassidy is a former intern at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston and a graduate student in critical and curatorial studies at the University of Louisville. She received her BFA in printmaking from the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design in 2004.

As a graduate student, she has been recognized for her outstanding academic achievements. In 2008 she received the Hite Art Institute Assistantship, a one-year curatorial assistantship at the institute. Cassidy has served as an intern at the International Contemporary Art Foundation in Louisville and is currently a research assistant at the Speed Art Museum.

Valerie Cassel Oliver is curator at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, where she has organized Splat Boom Pow! The Influence of Cartoons in Contemporary Art (2003); Double Consciousness: Black Conceptual Art since 1970 (2005); Black Light/White Noise: Sound and Light in Contemporary Art (2007); and most recently Cinema Remixed and Reloaded: Black Women Artists and the Moving Image (with Dr. Andrea Barnwell Brownlee, Spelman College Museum of Fine Arts, 2008). Her forthcoming exhibition projects include the retrospective Benjamin Patterson: Born in the State of Flux/us (2010) and the survey Donald Moffett: Twenty Years (2011), which she is co-organizing with Eric Shiner at the Warhol Museum. Cassel Oliver is the recipient of a 2006 Getty Curatorial Research Fellowship and was among ten fellows selected for the Center for Curatorial Leadership Program in 2009. She serves on the editorial boards for Artl!es and Callaloo: A Journal of African Diaspora Arts and Letters; as an adviser for RxArt, New York, and Charlotte Street Foundation; and on the board of directors for Project Row Houses, Houston.

Namita Gupta Wiggers is curator, Museum of Contemporary Craft in partnership with the Pacific Northwest College of Art, Portland, Oregon. Her curatorial practice combines a background in contemporary art history and theory with studio practice as an art jeweler. She is the author of Unpacking the Collection: Selections from the Museum of Contemporary Craft (2008) and has contributed to such publications as Artl!es, The Journal of Museum Education, and Metalsmith. Selected curatorial projects include Land Art: David Shaner (2010), The Academy Is Full of Craft (2009–10), Transference (2009–10), Call + Response (2009), Manufractured: The Conspicuous Transformation of Everyday Objects (2009), Touching Warms the Art (2008), The Living Room (2007–8), and New Embroidery: NotYour Grandma’s Doily (2006).

Conrad Bakker Nick Cave Cat Chow

HAND+MADE

B Team

Sonya Clark Gabriel Craig Theaster Gates Cynthia Giachetti Ryan Gothrup Sabrina Gschwandtner Christy Matson James Melchert Yuka Otani Sheila Pepe Michael Rea Anne Wilson Saya Woolfalk Bohyun Yoon

ISBN 978-1-933619-26-2

Contemporary Arts Museum Houston

Contemporary Arts Museum Houston

Lauren Kalman

H A N D MADE + The Performative Impulse in Art and Craft