Tanya Harrod

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.

Craft

Glenn Adamson

Edward S. Cooke, Jr.

The Journal of Modern Craft is the first peer-reviewed academic journal to provide an interdisciplinary and international forum in its subject area. It addresses all forms of making that self-consciously set themselves apart from mass production-whether in the making of designed objects, artworks, buildings, or other artefacts. The journal covers craft in all its historical and contemporary manifestations, from the mid-nineteenth century, when handwork was first consciously framed in opposition to industrialization, through to the present day, when ideas once confined to the 'applied arts' have come to seem vital across a huge range of cultural activities. Special emphasis is placed on studio practice, and on the transformations of indigenous forms of craft activity throughout the world. The journal also reviews and analyses the relevance of craft within new media, folk art, architecture, design, contemporary art, and other fields. The Journal of Modern Craft is the main scholarly voice on the subject of craft, conceived both as an idea and as a field of practice in its own right.

The Journal of Modern Craft

For over 30 years, Tanya Harrod has written for newspapers, magazines, and journals. As these essays show, there are no boundaries in her vision: art is considered in the light of craft, and craft in the light of art; design is present too - developing and sometimes separating from craft and art. In part these essays document the development of these shifts, looking always at the particular, vivid embodiment. Her subjects range from the sculpture of Barbara Hepworth to the poetic objects-in-landscape of Ian Hamilton Finlay, from the science fiction of Philip K. Dick to the theories of Richard Sennett, from Welsh quarry slates to the fine art of icing cakes, from the ceramics of Pablo Picasso to the still lives of Gwyn Hanssen Pigott.

Essays on Making in the Modern World

The Real Thing

British studio potter Michael Cardew (1901-1983) was a man of paradox, a modernist who disliked modernity, a colonial servant who despised Empire, and an intellectual who worked with his hands. After graduating from Oxford in 1923, he made majestic slipware alongside legendary potter Bernard Leach.

Michael Cardew : Modern Pots, Colonialism and the Counterculture

The Last Sane Man

The Journal of Modern Craft is the first peer-reviewed academic journal to provide an interdisciplinary and international forum in its subject area. It addresses all forms of making that self-consciously set themselves apart from mass production-whether in the making of designed objects, artworks, buildings, or other artefacts. The journal covers craft in all its historical and contemporary manifestations, from the mid-nineteenth century, when handwork was first consciously framed in opposition to industrialization, through to the present day, when ideas once confined to the ‘applied arts' have come to seem vital across a huge range of cultural activities. Special emphasis is placed on studio practice, and on the transformations of indigenous forms of craft activity throughout the world. The journal also reviews and analyses the relevance of craft within new media, folk art, architecture, design, contemporary art, and other fields. The Journal of Modern Craft is the main scholarly voice on the subject of craft, conceived both as an idea and as a field of practice in its own right.

RoseLee Goldberg

Carol McNicoll

Carol McNicoll (b.1943) works within the vessel tradition and alongside other women ceramicists, such as Alison Britton and Elizabeth Fritsch, she helped to transform the British ceramics scene in the late 1970s.McNicoll's objects embody quintessential English eccentricity: china shire horses and toby jugs, for example, are given a surreal twist; teapots appear with three spouts; bowls resemble classic English dishes such as egg and chips. Yet all are functional: a common characteristic that illustrates McNicoll's determination to push back boundaries and to make everyday objects extraordinary. This preoccupation with the unexpected is reflected in the artist's favoured technique, slip casting, primarily an industrial process whose association with replication and mass production is intrinsic to her work.The first book devoted to McNicoll's art, this title brings together biographical and developmental elements to create an in-depth analysis of Carol McNicoll's work. Featuring an interview between the artist and lifelong friend RoseLee Goldberg, this book also provides insights into the period in which the artist emerged, placing McNicoll's work in the context of the worlds of art, fashion and music in the 1970s.

Tanya Harrod

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