Study Center
An online mirror of the physical Study Center housed on the second floor of the Museum of Contemporary Craft in Portland, Oregon during the run of the Gestures of Resistance exhibition. (January 26 - June 26, 2010)
Included here are readings that shaped our thinking about the exhibition, links to exhibition artists' own web sites, links to affiliated inquiries whose approach echoes or counters our own in ways we find productive, and a podcast of weekly readings-aloud in proximity of craft and performance. Also available here is information about the first iteration of the Gestures of Resistance exhibition and panel held in conjunction with the 2008 College Art Association Conference in Dallas, TX.
Readings
Actions: what you can do with the city Mirko Zardini and Giovanna Borasi, Eds. (2009)
The Affective Turn Patrica Clough and Jean Halley, Eds. (2007)
Art and Labor: Ruskin, Morris and the Craftsman Ideal in America Eileen Boris (1986)
The Art of Loving Erich Fromm (1956)
Centering M.C. Richards (1962)
Change: Principles of Problem Formation and Problem Resolution Paul Watzlawick, John Weakland, and Richard Fisch (1974)
Choosing Craft: The Artist's Viewpoint Vicki Halper and Diane Douglas, Eds. (2009)
Collectivism After Modernism Gregory Sholette and Blake Stimson, Eds. (2007)
Conversation Pieces Grant Kester (2004)
The Craft Reader Glenn Adamson, Ed. (2010)
The Craftsman Richard Sennett (2008)
Escape Attempts: The Theory and Practice of Resistance to Everyday Life Stanley Cohen and Laurie Taylor (1976)
The Everyday Life Reader Ben Highmore, Ed. (2001)
Failure: Experiments in Aesthetic and Social Practices Nicole Antebi, Colin Dickey and Robby Herbst, Eds. (2008)
Institutional Critique and After Andrea Fraser, Isabelle Graw, Jens Hoffmann, and Renee Green, Eds. (2006)
The Intangibilities of Form: Skill and Deskilling in Art After the Readymade John Roberts (2007)
The Interventionists Nato Thompson and Gregory Sholette (2006)
Issues in Curating Contemporary Art and Performance Judith Rugg, Ed. (2008)
The Nature and Art of Workmanship David Pye (1968)
No Time: Stress and the Crisis of Modern Life Heather Menzies (2005)
The Object of Labor: Art, Cloth, and Cultural Production Joan Livingstone and John Ploof, Eds. (2007 )
OurSpace: Resisting the Corporate Control of Culture Christine Harold (2007)
Participation Claire Bishop, Ed. (2006)
The Politics of Aesthetics Jacques Ranciere (2004)
The Practice of Everyday Life Vol 1 &2 Michel de Certeau (Luce Giard, Pierre Mayol Vol 2) (1984)
Shame and Its Sisters: A Silvan Tomkins Reader Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick and Adam Frank (1995)
Situation Claire Doherty, Ed. (2009)
Slow Living Wendy Parkins and Geoffrey Craig (2006)
Small Acts of Repair: Performance, Ecology, and Goat Island Matthew Goulish and Stephen Bottoms, Eds. (2007)
String, Felt, Thread: The Hierarchy of Art and Craft in American Art Elissa Auther (2009)
Taking the Matter into Common Hands: On Contemporary Art and Collaborative Practices Johanna Billing, Maria Lind, and Lars Nilsson (2007)
The Unknown Craftsman: A Japanese Insight into Beauty Yanagi Soetsu (1990)
Thinking Through Craft Glenn Adamson (2007)
Touching Feeling: Affect, Pedagogy, Performativity Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick (2003)
Trickster Makes This World Lewis Hyde (1998)
What We Want is Free: Generosity and Exchange in Recent Art Ted Purvis, Ed. (2005)
Who Cares Anne Pasternak, Ed. (2006)
Exhibition Artists
Affiliated Inquiries
The 100-mile suit is a literal examination of the question "where did you get your outfit?" A fiber to finish project inspired by initiatives in sustainability such as the 100-mile diet, community supported agriculture, local car-share transport and creative collectives. The 100-mile suit unravels the disconnect of consumer to product by reintegrating and reconnecting the wearer of clothes to local trades and economies.
SlowLab supports creative thinkers through various phases of research into slow forms and applications, encouraging active inquiry and experimentation, and enabling new discoveries to be applied to or realized as prototypes, installations, and community-building tools. They have an excellent listing of projects that inspire them, of which Monika Hoinkis's subjectifed objects, Living With Things, stands out.
Actions: What You Can Do With the City is an exhibition organized by the Canadian Centre for Architecture that presents 99 actions that instigate positive change in contemporary cities around the world.The exhibition will run at the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, in Chicago from October 16, 2009 - March 13, 2010.
Handshouse Studio is an innovative educational organization that initiates ambitious hands-on projects as a way to explore history, understand science, and perpetuate the arts. In the careful (re)building of historical objects (lost wooden synagogues of Poland, David Bushnell's one-man submarine, the Perronet and Diderot Cranes), Handshouse participants gain a deeply integrated knowledge of history by making again with the tools, and by the methods, of another time.
Knitting Nation is an ongoing, collaborative performance and site-specific installation project. It explores aspects of textile and apparel manufacturing, laying bare the process of making machine knitted fabric. The project functions as a commentary on how humans interact with machines, global manufacturing, trade and labor, iconography, and fashion.
Making A Slow Revolution is a blog edited by Helen Carnac, with the aim of providing a forum for open discussion around the contribution of contemporary craft to the philosophies presented within the slow movement. Her exhibition, Taking Time: Craft and the Slow Revolution, is on tour through June of 2011 in the United Kingdom.
Journal of Aesthetics and Protest is, according to their web site, a weirdo think tank. They consistently publish excellent edited volumes at the crossroads of art and activism.
Deep Craft is Scott Constable's contemporary take on the ‘jointer’s journals’ of 18th century carpenters. An experimental weblog for organizing his thinking about craft during the course of daily life and work, it includes an evolving Deep Craft Manifesto.
Reading Aloud: in proximity of craft and performance
These weekly podcasts are a continuation of seed plot, a series of readings-aloud recorded for students in Judith Leemann's sculpture seminar at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design in the spring of 2009.
Project History
2008 Panel: Gestures of Resistance: Craft, Performance, and the Politics of Slowness
Presented at the 2008 College Art Association Conference in Dallas, TX.
Kelly Cobb: The 100-Mile Suit: Costume as an Exercise in Regionalism
Patricia J. Keller: Doing Time: Women, Hand-Spinning and Quiltmaking in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, 1800-1880.
Rod Northcutt: Making and Faking: Industrial Distillation of the Crafted Mark
Bibiana Obler: Michael Rakowitz and the Anti-Craft Tradition
Christopher Whittey and Kristine Woods: Un-Express, or, Delivering Slowness as Political Ploy
2008 Exhibition: Gestures of Resistance: Craft, Performance, and the Politics of Slowness
Gray Matters gallery, Dallas, TX. February 20 - March 22, 2008
Participating Artists:
Anthea Black
Kelly Cobb
Liz Collins with Sabrina Gschwandtner, Allison Smith, Lisa Anne Auerbach, Cat Mazza, and Julia Bryan Wilson
Barb Hunt
Sarah Klein
Barbara Koenen
Robyn Love
Carole Lung AKA Frau Fiber
Cat Mazza
Zoe Sheehan Seldaña
Ehren Tool
Christopher Whittey and Kristine Woods
Anne Wilson with Sara Rabinowitz and team; Jeroen Nelemans video; Surabhi Ghosh photography
Sherri Wood
Special Installations and Workshop:
Robyn Love has over fifty volunteers working with her to knit a mile of duplicate yellow stripe to be installed along a Dallas road.
Sherri Wood will be publicly sewing her Repent/Mercy banners at the Conference Artspace.
Anthea Black is producing a limited edition postering campaign around Dallas.
Workshop with Frau Fiber: KO Manufacturing–every little bit helps.
Franchise workshop: white collar shirt production.
2009 lecture for the series From Trash to Spectacle: Materiality in Contemporary Art Production
Lecture given by Shannon Stratton as part of the 2009 lecture series presented at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago for the series From Trash to Spectacle: Materiality in Contemporary Art Production. April 1st, 2009.
Lecture text here.
Enhanced podcast here.