Thinking Through Craft by Glenn Adamson

by Glenn Adamson

Co-published in Association with the Victoria and Albert Museum, London This book is a timely and engaging introduction to the way that artists working in all media think about craft. Workmanship is key to today’s visual arts, when high ‘production values’ are becoming increasingly commonplace. Yet craft’s centrality to contemporary art has received little serious attention from critics and historians. Dispensing with clichéd arguments that craft is art, Adamson persuasively makes a case for defining craft in a more nuanced fashion. The interesting thing about craft, he argues, is that it is perceived to be 'inferior' to art. The book consists of an overview of various aspects of this second-class identity - supplementarity, sensuality, skill, the pastoral, and the amateur. It also provides historical case studies analysing craft’s role in a variety of disciplines, including architecture, design, contemporary art, and the crafts themselves. Thinking Through Craft will be essential reading for anyone interested in craft or the broader visual arts.

Genres: Art, Crafts, Nonfiction, Philosophy, Art Design, Design, Research

Paperback

First published December 10, 2007

Reviews

[Mandy E · Rating 2 out of 5]

This work read like a postgraduate thesis wherein the argument's "support" is structured around a preconceived conclusion: craft frames art. Adamson's prejudices have a clear and controlling influence on all of his analyses within the text (witness the gravity in his approaches to the works of artists versus the patronizing indulgence in his considerations of craftspeople). I found his theorizing clumsy and simplistic. I did like his thematic organization, though, of supplementarity, sensuality, skill, the pastoral, and the amateur, and I agree that art and craft cannot be conflated, but I think there is infinitely more to be done in terms of a theory of craft.

[Kate Kosek · Rating 3 out of 5]

Took me a while to get through this one. There's a lot of interesting information, but at times the writing was too academic for my taste - which caused my mind to wander then I couldn't retain anything and would have to re-read entire sections.

[Kandace · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very compelling academic investigation on how to theorize craft in relation to art. Adamson engages this binary through complicating it at every turn, and provides various lenses through which he explores this key concept that while craft is not modern art, craft is used and set apart from modern art in ways that reveal how we think about topics such as skill, functionality, and success of trying to reclaim, reject, or embed craft in how the art world understands modern and/or contemporary art. As a feminist scholar, I am eager to continue digging into Adamson's claims around how the goal of feminist reclamation of craft shouldn't be reclaiming craft for art's sake. Ultimately the book's success is in the ways Adamson argues craft should be used to raise more questions in art, which is what he does with each of the examples of artists and movements he provides throughout the text. This leaves the reader then wondering, ok, so what do we do with this?

[Megan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great book for anyone who works with their hands. It provides a good theoretical framework of craft (somthing that is pretty non-existent thus far). Glenn Adamson knows his stuff.

[Alice · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent read about craft as art through a critical lens.

[Charlie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thesis research. Compelling points about craft’s supplementarity to art.

[Marrije]

Very much over my head - I'm not well versed in art theory, and don't think I'll make it a specialty.