Anthea Black

The New Politics of the Handmade: Craft, Art and Design, Editors: Anthea Black and Nicole Burisch

Contemporary craft, art and design are inseparable from the flows of production and consumption under global capitalism. The New Politics of the Handmade features twenty-three voices who critically rethink the handmade in this dramatically shifting economy.

The authors examine craft within the conditions of extreme material and economic disparity; a renewed focus on labour and materiality in contemporary art and museums; the political dimensions of craftivism, neoliberalism, and state power; efforts toward urban renewal and sustainability; the use of digital technologies; and craft's connections to race, cultural identity and sovereignty in texts that criss-cross five continents. They claim contemporary craft as a dynamic critical position for understanding the most immediate political and aesthetic issues of our time.

Table of contents
List of illustrations
Acknowledgements
Contributors

Introduction, Anthea Black (California College of the Arts, USA) and Nicole Burisch (National Gallery of Canada)

1. From Craftivism to Craftwashing, Anthea Black (California College of the Arts, USA) and Nicole Burisch (National Gallery of Canada)

2. Ethical Fashion, Craft and the New Spirit of Global Capitalism, Elke Gaugele (Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, Austria)

3. Selven O'Keef Jarmon: Beading Across Geographies, Nicole Burisch (National Gallery of Canada)

4. The Making of Many Hands: Artisanal Production and Neighborhood Redevelopment in Contemporary Socially Engaged Art, Noni Brynjolson (University of Indianapolis, USA)

5. That Looks Like Work: The Total Aesthetics of Handcraft, Shannon R. Stratton (Ox-Bow School of Art and Artists Residency, USA)

6. Craft as Property as Liberalism as Problem, Leopold Kowolik (Sheridan College and York University, Canada)

7. Zahner Metals: Architectural Fabrication and Craft Labour, Peggy Deamer (Yale University and Deamer Studio, USA)

8. Capitalising on Community: The Makerspace Phenomenon, Diana Sherlock (Alberta University of the Arts, Canada)

9. Morehshin Allahyari: On Material Speculation, Alexis Anais Avedisian (NYC Media Lab, USA) and Anna Khachiyan (independent, USA)

10. From Molten Plastic to Polished Mahogany: Bricolage and Scarcity in 1990s Cuban Art, Blanca Serrano Ortiz De Solórzano (Institute for Studies on Latin American Art, USA)

11. Things Needed Made, Nasrin Himada (independent scholar, Canada)

12. Secret Stash: Textiles, Hoarding, Collecting, Accumulation and Craft, Kirsty Robertson (Western University, Canada)

13. Shinique Smith: Lines that Bind, Julia Bryan-Wilson (University of California, USA)

14. Margarita Cabrera: Landscapes of Nepantla, Laura August (independent scholar, Guatemala/USA)

15. The Sovereign Stitch: Re-reading Embroidery as a Critical Feminist-Decolonial Text, Ellyn Walker (Queen's University, Canada)

16. Ursula Johnson: Weaving Histories and Netukulimk in L'nuwelti'k (We Are Indian) and Other Works, Heather Anderson (Carleton University Art Gallery, Canada)

17. 'The Black Craftsman Situation': A Critical Conversation about Race and Craft
Sonya Clark (Amherst College, USA), Wesley Clark (artist, USA), Bibiana Obler (George Washington University, USA), Mary Savig (Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian American Art Museum, USA), Joyce J. Scott (artist, USA) and Namita Gupta Wiggers (Warren Wilson College, USA)

Index

Writings by Black and Burisch are included in The Craft Reader (Bloomsbury) and Extra/ordinary: Craft and Contemporary Art (Duke University Press), the forthcoming catalogue Making Otherwise (Carleton University Art Gallery) and together they have lectured on craft, curating, and politics in Canada, the USA, and the UK.

Reviews
“This exciting new anthology is an engaged and comprehensive overview of the political and ethical debates of contemporary craft and its pervasive social commitments.” –  Jenni Sorkin, Associate Professor, History of Art & Architecture, University of California, Santa Barbara, USA,

“The New Politics of the Handmade jumpstarts a sorely needed discussion about the unexamined claims that surround craft as a progressive political movement, a form of anti-capitalist consumption, and a sustainable practice. In this volume Anthea Black and Nicole Burisch have orchestrated an insightful conversation with a diverse group of scholars, artists, and curators about the role and power of craft in the contemporary art world that charts a more nuanced way forward.” –  Elissa Auther, Deputy Director of Curatorial Affairs and the William and Mildred Lasdon Chief Curator, Museum of Arts and Design, USA.

FROM CRAFTIVISM TO CRAFTWASHING, a conversation with Anthea Black and Nicole Burisch and moderated by Lynne Heller

In the almost-decade since the word “craftivism” has been used to describe the blending of craft and activism, a number of forces have complicated this relatively emergent dialogue and set of practices. This discussion will investigate how the particular qualities of craft have been conflated with notions of authenticity, individuality, sustainability, and radical politics, and what this might mean in regards to changing notions of activism.  If “greenwashing” refers to the use of branding to make a product seem eco-friendly while concealing its negative impacts, we introduce the term “craftwashing” to refer to instances where craft is used to market and perform political and social engagement while obscuring ethical, environmental, and labour issues in the chain of production.

Performing Austerity: Artists, Work, and Economic Speculation
University Art Association Conference, Toronto October 23-26 2014.

The relationship between arts economies and austerity is a tumultuous one. We need only recall Stephen Harper’s sneering 2008 categorization of artists as rich complainers as evidence of the persistent myths that are used to devalue artistic work as “non-essential” during times of economic crisis. And yet, while the global commercial art market continues to experience steady growth and record-breaking auction sales, this profit-oriented circuit is neither possible nor desirable for many artists. Given the rich history of art works that engage with economic exchange–from artists’ storefronts and corporations to drop-out culture and performative actions of refusal–this panel will consider the ways in which artists negotiate and respond to the simultaneous devaluation of artistic work, and increasing pressures on artists, cultural workers, and funding agencies to behave as financial speculators. In a climate of austerity budgets and precarious labour, we ask: how do artists, cultural workers, and institutions adapt and situate themselves? What kinds of identities–within cultural work and more broadly–are produced by capitalist accelerationism? The panel will include the perspectives of artists, historians, scholars, and cultural workers addressing arts economies and austerity measures in Canada and the United States.

Session Chairs: Anthea Black and Nicole Burisch
Affiliation: Artist/Faculty OCAD University ; Independent Critic/Curator
Papers: Kirsty Robertson, "The Austerity Museum," Michael Maranda, "Investing in Failure: the curious relationship between higher education and sales of artworks." and Shannon Stratton, "Off the Grid Education, Autodidacts and Collectivity: Do we need institutional MFAs?"

On October 24 2014, as part of the UAAC conference held at OCADU in Toronto, I co-chaired a panel with Nicole Burisch on Performing Austerity: Artists, Work, and Economic Speculation. The panel included papers by Shannon Stratton, Michael Maranda, and Kirsty Robertson. To introduce the panel and frame some of the issues presented in the papers, we also drafted a letter to the UAAC community.

The letter can be accessed here:
http://antheablack.com/2014/10/31/performing-austerity-artists-work-and-economic-speculation/

The response from the President of UAAC, Dr. Anne Whitelaw can be accessed here:
http://uaac-aauc.com/sites/default/files/UAAC%20Precarity%20letter%20response.pdf