The Ambiguity of Modern Craft   1      2      3      -      PRINTER VERSION

>> on the argument that Western culture for the last 200 or so years has devalued the handwork, usefulness and domestic nature of crafts in favor of the heroic and purely visual appeal of painting and sculpture. There is no question that this prejudice exists, but at a time when the validity of the tenets of modernist and post-modernist painting and sculpture are being questioned, the crafts should be mounting cogent arguments that not only challenge the cultural supremacy of the fine arts, but also demonstrate the unique role crafts can play in addressing the separation of the art experience from our everyday lives. Modern crafts appears reluctant, however, to risk the benefits, comfort and relative safety of the insular world it has created for itself by openly challenging the fine arts cultural supremacy and claiming for the crafts the kind of philosophical and moral imperative to which painting and sculpture have laid claim. Until it does, though, modern crafts will continue to be a marginal activity with negligible influence on our culture.

References
1. Dore Ashton, The New York School: A Cultural Reckoning, Viking Press, 1973, p. 198.
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