Where Art and Craft
COLLIDE
BY ANNIE BUCKLEY
Contemporary artists use traditional crafting techniques to make their case.
From knitted wall hangings to cast bronze
rugs, hand-torched metal to papier-mâché
birds, it’s evident that crafts inform and
inspire a growing number of contemporary artists.
Case in point: the 2007 international art fair Art
Basel Miami Beach, where pieces on display
included a sculpture constructed from a porcelain
animal swathed in a hand-crocheted suit, a painting
laced with needlework, a collage bursting with faux
flowers and recycled materials, and various
discarded soccer balls, bottle caps, and cardboard
boxes sewn, glued, welded, taped, or otherwise
pieced together with supplies as simple as Elmer’s
glue and a needle and thread.
Art Basel Miami Beach, the American sister to
the main Art Basel show held annually in Basel,
Switzerland, draws upward of 20,000 people —
artists, dealers, collectors, and enthusiasts from
around the world.
A growing number of smaller auxiliary fairs, such
as Pulse Miami, Aqua Art Miami, and the New Art
Dealers Alliance Art Fair, have cropped up around
Art Basel Miami Beach. Works inspired by contemporary crafting — typically found in the free-spirited
atmosphere of flea markets or crafting fairs — hold
their own in the fast-paced, champagne-laden party
scene with price tags that can top $100,000.
“People appreciate something complex and labor
intensive, and this is what comes across in these
works,” says Katrina Traywick, whose Berkeley, Calif.,
gallery Traywick Contemporary participated in Aqua
Art Miami.
Miami’s Fredric Snitzer Gallery has participated in
Art Basel Miami Beach since its inception. Snitzer
notes that young artists are using more of what
are traditionally considered to be craft processes.
But, he says, “I don’t think, in general, that a
contemporary artist takes up craft techniques to
re-engage in craft so much as that they are open
to using anything as a resource for making art. This
generation of artists is so hungry to make art that
they will take ideas and materials from wherever
they need to take them to make their work.”
At Pulse Miami, San Francisco’s Rena Bransten
Gallery exhibited sculptures by Portuguese artist
Joana Vasconcelos, who uses handcrafted crochet
covers to transform mass-produced porcelain
statuary.
At the Aqua Art fair, Seattle’s Roq La Rue Gallery
took advantage of the setting to display Boo Davis’
skeleton-themed quilt draped over the double bed
in a room at the Aqua Hotel. As with many of the
craft-inspired pieces, this one challenged the
familiar borders in the long and complex relationship between art and craft.
“It gets into so many wonderfully murky areas,”
says Namita Gupta Wiggers, curator at the Museum
of Contemporary Craft in Portland, Ore. “But that’s
what makes it interesting.”
Historically, definitions of art and craft have
depended heavily on time and place. The evolution
of the British Arts and Crafts movement instigated
a pivotal convergence in the early 20th century. A
renaissance in the use of handicrafts in American
art renewed interest during the 1970s. But how do
the fields relate today?
“Craft is definitely having a resurgence — it’s not
a punitive term in the art world anymore,” says
