2009

In this time line I pull quotes to illustrate a thread in popular and scholarly writing and criticism about glass. Here we will see current glass artists defending their art against the accusations and separating themselves from these stereotypes and, hopefully, find out how and where the now-common opinion was born. Fundamentally, the general thesis seems to be born of the question, What Is Art? This question I will leave to others to answer, here I am only documenting the written history of a popular way of thinking and a popular taste. The years are not in chronological order, there are posts from 1886 to 2009, you may search by year, i.e. "1981" in the search box.

2009 Roberta Smith:

"One of the most charged and polymorphous five-letter words in aesthetic discourse on a good day, craft has become especially slippery. Until lately the word was a pejorative in the contemporary-art world (and still is in some quarters), a code word for crunchy, multigrain hand-madeness.

In its world, the word craft tends to be cherished with a defensive reverence. It connotes a series of traditions nearly as old as human life, a vocabulary of skills and techniques that can’t be faked and the raison d’être of a vastly superior aesthetic endeavor, although a little recognition from the larger art world would be nice.

But the ground shifts. Peter Voulkos’s improvisational ceramic sculptures of the 1950s bade function adieu and eventually entered the history of Abstract Expressionism. One of his students, Ken Price, is represented by Matthew Marks, where Jasper Johns exhibits. George Ohr’s pots, the quilts of Gee’s Bend, the Weiner Werkstätte, the textile sculptures of Lenore Tawney are all part of collective art-world knowledge. The craze for all things 1950s didn’t hurt.

Today many aspects of craft have been absorbed — minus the reverence — by contemporary art, now considered in its postmedium phase. Embroidery, quilting, woodworking and glass blowing as art no longer surprise. A penchant for glazed and unglazed clay is especially evident of late, thanks to artists like Arlene Shechet, Lynda Benglis, Beverly Semmes, Nicole Cherubini, Jessica Jackson Hutchins and Sterling Ruby, who tend to push beyond traditional techniques in ways that might even take Voulkos aback.

Except for Voulkos, you’ll find none of these artists at SOFA, probably by mutual consent. Here the art-craft divide seems as firm as ever and thus especially interesting to contemplate.

If you mostly frequent art-world fairs, buckle up. You won’t be ticking off blue-chip or hot new names along these aisles, nor snoozing through stretches of bland derivatives. Nothing is neutral here, especially for first-timers. It’s either love or hate, and if it isn’t mostly hate, have your eyes, or mind, examined. But visual harassment can be stimulating. What good is taste if it doesn’t betray you? Hate can turn to love with just one close look, or maybe a few.

Harassments and betrayals abound at SOFA. The F for functional notwithstanding, far too much here seems generated by the conviction that an object made to serve no purpose whatever is automatically art. Too often the result is just really, really bad, whatever you call it: schlocky, oblivious of history, full of empty technique.

Art doesn’t have to do anything except convince you that it is art. Some works that succeed are historical, like the quiet but assertive and functional vessels of Lucy Rie (1902-95), one of the founders of modern British ceramics. Her influence is reflected at the stand of Clare Beck and Adrian Sassoon, in the glowing yellow porcelain tea set by Rupert Spira and the Morandi-like arrangements of Julian Stair. Kate Malone mines several degrees of exaggeration with large-scale vases and pitchers further bulked up to resemble pine cones or snail colonies.

Technical feats are not by definition empty. Proof positive is the Heller Gallery’s dazzling display of new work by Lino Tagliapietra. At 75, he is still extending the rich decorative-glass tradition of Venice (Murano, actually), even though he does most of his work in the United States. With their sinuous, exaggerated vase shapes and suspensions of bright patterns and shapes, they constitute their own category of Op Art.

Smith, Roberta. "Why Craft was never a four-letter word." NY Times, April 17, 2009. accessed April 18, 2009. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/18/arts/design/18sofa.html?pagewanted=1&adxnnlx=1240084826-E6Z3Hsy71Vb13ygXRILwEg