Craft (Documents of Contemporary Art)

Part of the acclaimed series of anthologies which document major themes and ideas in contemporary art.

A vital resource through which to understand the ways technologies, materials, techniques and tools are investigated through the lens of craft in contemporary art.

Craft is a contested concept in art history and a vital category through which to understand contemporary art. Through ‘craft’, materials, techniques and tools are investigated and their histories explored in order to reflect on the politics of labour and on the extraordinary complexity of the made world around us. This anthology offers an ethnography of craft, surveying its shape-shifting identities in the context of progressive art and design through writings by artists and makers, and drawing on poetry, fiction, anthropology and sociology. Reflections on new technologies and materials, lost and found worlds of handwork and the politics of work all throw light on ‘craft’ as process, product and ideology.

Artists surveyed include Anni Albers, El Anatsui, Phyllida Barlow, Louise Bourgeois, Annie Cattrell, Richard Deacon, Sam Durant, Antje Ehmann, Harun Farocki, Lucio Fontana, Theaster Gates, Sabrina Geschwantner, Harmony Hammond, Brian Jungen, Henry Krokatsis, Ana Lupas, Enzo Mari, Ethel Mairet, Agnes Martin, Robert Morris, Simon Periton, Martin Puryear, Jessi Reaves, Hannah Ryggen, Bridget Riley, Lu Shengzhong, Troy Town Art Pottery, Francis Uprichard, Peter Voulkos, Edmund de Waal.

Writers include Glenn Adamson, W. H. Auden, Elissa Auther, Reyner Banham, Jean Baudrillard, John Berger, Walter Benjamin, Michel de Certeau, Iftikhar Dadi, Martin Heidegger, Joan Key, Igor Kopytoff, Primo Levi, Sarat Marahraj, Karl Marx, Lev Manovich, William Morris, Sadie Plant, Rainer Maria Rilke, Jenni Sorkin, Richard Sennett, Julia Bryan- Wilson.