*Definition
The dictionary defines craft as skill and experience, especially in relation to making objects, and relates words such as attainment, accomplishment, acquirement, acquisition; an ability that has been acquired by training. (Cambridge Dictionary, 2010)
Skill is defined as the ‘ability to do an activity or job well, because it has been practiced,’ (Cambridge Dictionary, 2010) with talent and expertise linked to it.
*Art Versus Craft, versus Design?
‘any activity that involves the making of functional objects is simply executing a preconceived plan or design and therefore cannot possibly be a creative activity, hence it cannot be art.’(Collingwood, cited in Risatti, 2007. p11)
Rob Ryan
*Adamson describes the difference between craft and art as, the ‘ghetto of technique’ compared to the ‘free play of ideas.’(Adamson, 2007, p71)
Mia Pearlman
Jeremy Deller & Alan Kane (2005) Folk Art Archive
*‘one of the strengths of a handicraft-based art form…is the flexibility it allows the artist to change, expand and explore his original intention (or design) until the point he or she considers that the art work is complete.’ ‘The artist who is competent in sculpting figuratively, painting, book illustrating and producing prints is an oddity,’ (Dormer, 1994. p30 - 31)
Industrial Revolution
‘a decline of skills and a replacement of the
living, breathing, thinking craftsman by the inhuman machine.’ (Adamson, 2010. p43) Machinery
‘machinery is intended to cheapen commodities… it is a means for producing surplus-valueMarx, cited in Adamson, 2010. p69)
Tools
‘in handicrafts and manufacture, the workman makes use of a tool, in the factory, the machine makes use of him.’ (Marx, cited in Adamson, 2010. p69)
Value
‘Value is determined by the average amount of labour that is socially necessary to produce a given product; it is informed by the countless acts of individual (living) labour performed by individual workers.’ (Diederichsen, 2008. p22)
Value according to Marx
Material value–What is an object made of?
Labour Value –How much work went into it?
Use Value –What is it for?
Beyond these – ‘The Fetishisation of the Commodity’
-The thing that sets it apart
Marcel Duchamp (1887 - 1968), Fountain, 1917
Caspar David Friedrich (1809)‘Monk by the Sea’
*Both of these ^ are landscape paintings but are judged and looked at in very different ways. Friedrich's painting is considered 'high art' therefore is considered to have more value.
Graffiti in South Bronx.
Graffiti (Banksy) exhibited in Covent Garden.
*Both of these are graffiti yet because one of them is in an exhibition it instantly had more value and people read into it a lot more- looking for messages, feelings or emotions it might portray. A normal piece of graffiti on the street, such as the top picture would never get that kind of treatment.
*Fine artists are also great believers of art having a beautiful aesthetic, and therefore ‘contend that functional objects…cannot be aesthetic objects because of their function; they can only be considered utilitarian objects of use.’ (Risatti, 2007. p67)
Craftspeople counteract this statement by suggesting ‘nonfunctional works in traditional craft material – for example figurative works in wood or clay – as craft objects in order to argue that crafty objects can indeed be works of art,’ (Risatti, 2007. p67)
Materials
Jake (1966 - ) and Dinos (1962 - ) Chapman, Sex and Death , 2004
When art movers tried to lift Death, they were as what appears to be light inflatable plastic is actually weighty painted bronze.
‘material is not a defining characteristic of craft or of fine art – a sculpture in clay or wood is still a sculpture and a chair in bronze or marble is still a chair.’ (Risatti, 2007. p68)
* Most Expensive Paintings. LINK
Damien Hirst (2007) ‘For the Love Of God’
*Sickeningly For the Love of God consists of a platinum cast of a human skull encrusted with 8,601 flawless diamonds, including a pear-shaped pink diamond located in the forehead. Costing £14 million to produce, the work went on display at the White Cube gallery in London in an exhibition Beyond belief with an asking price of £50 million!
*‘art is “good for something” and therefore has a use: it is legitimate and must exist, despite the fact that its meaning lies precisely in not being useful.’
(Diederichsen, 2008. p23)
'Craft has never been more important than now, as an antidote to mass production and as a practice in which the very time is takes to produce an object becomes part of its value in a world that often moves too fast.'
Caroline Roux,
Acting Editor, Crafts magazine
Kako Ueda
Cut paper masterpieces! With each project, she explores her deep interest in organic beings (insects, animals, and humans alike), and weaves them into mind-bogglingly intricate, extraordinarily precise patterns and forms.
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