CRAFT OR POST-CRAFT?

Takashi Hinoda Fluid World, 2002-2006 Ceramic, 17 x 23 x 17 Photo: Takashi Hinoda Dai Ichi Arts, New York, NY

Mark Lyman, Director/Founder of SOFA, described SOFA artworks as “premier examples of a post-craft art movement.”

SOFA was founded in the 1990s when aesthetic pluralism legitimized a wide variety of forms, styles and artistic intentions. Over the years, the word craft (a shortened version of crafts derived from the Arts and Crafts Movement,) increasingly failed to capture the essence of the new expressions being created from traditional materials, and from time-honored, virtuoso techniques applied to new media. And certainly, it did not do justice to the intellectually sophisticated content of the resonant artworks being produced.

As crafts shortened to craft in popular discourse, the true meaning of the word became lost. Craft properly denotes fine craftsmanship, skill—a virtuosity of process and technique, which can be applied to many creative endeavors.

The craft field has struggled in the last two decades to redefine itself. Like all movements in the arts, it has been an organic process. No one wants to throw out the baby with the bath water—hand-craftsmanship, virtuosity of execution and celebration of sensuous materials remain highly prized virtues.

Post-craft, like many art movements, can be identified by its sameness and difference with prior movements; in our case, the Studio Craft Movement, which is so handsomely honored in the current Metropolitan Museum of Art’s retrospective exhibition, One of A Kind: The Studio Craft Movement.

Rather than trying to explain the nuances of sameness and difference in post-craft artworks, which like all good art, will always transcend definitions, the main evolution seems to be a further embrace of the abstract and sculptural over the functional, increasingly sophisticated intellectual content, and experimentation with new materials.

In my view, the best way to understand post-craft is experience post-craft artworks. SOFA NEW YORK will present some premier examples in traditional and non-traditional craft media, works that transcend words and discrete disciplines— and therein lies their beauty.