Use and the Art Experience 1 2 3 4 - PRINTER VERSION
>>decadence", is Peter Voulkos. Voulkos' emphasis on the object as a self-sufficient aesthetic entity untainted by concerns of function and his flawed perception that he was breaking new ground and challenging a worn-out tradition, pushed craft away from the structure that had made it viable and understandable for thousands of years and replaced it with an ethnocentric aesthetic of barely 20 years. In a well-meaning but seriously flawed argument in a 1961 issue of Craft Horizons, Rose Slivka supported this shift of structure from craft to painting. "In the past, pottery form," she wrote, "limited and predetermined by function, with a few outstanding exceptions, has served the freer interests of surface."2 She went on to list three extensions of clay as paint in contemporary pottery: the pot as canvas, the clay as paint, and form and surface opposing each other with colour defining, creating and destroying form. Voulkos' work and the critical constructs that reinforced it put modern craft on a course of diminishing returns yet to be corrected.
The analogies between craft and painting have continued. Vicki Halper in her catalogue essay for the exhibition Clay Revisions: Plate, Cup, Vase, says, "The potter's dismissal of function as a governing premise in the construction of vessels is analogous to the painter's and sculptor's abandonment of realism early in the 20th century. In each case industrialism and technology left their mark: photography created cheap perfect images and mass factory production created cheap perfect forms. This allowed for a separation between traditional craftsmanship and the expression of ideas and feelings in both ceramics and the fine arts."3 There is no question that painting, at its most mundane, was used purely as a vehicle for representation the same can be said of photography today but painting, at its best, was never about mere representation. One could hardly suggest, for example, that Rembrandt's or Michelangelo's works could be replaced by photographs or that, for that matter, the new medium of video can replace the photographs of Walker Evans or Andre Kertez. Each of these disciplines painting, photography and craft has its own structure and responds to cultural change by building on structure, not abandoning it. Modern craft, in its desire to achieve cultural status, however, has rejected its structure, and has been busy trying to construct an ersatz structure from elements of craft's history that fit its agenda.
It is difficult to convince someone that use can be a significant factor in the art experience when few people have actually discovered it for themselves. Unless one has been deeply moved to the point that one's life has been changed, then the belief in the notion of art is an act of faith. It wasn't until I attended my first tea ceremony in Japan that I actually felt the power that use has when it is applied artistically to mundane circumstances like eating or drinking. In the introduction to Kaiseki: Zen Tastes In Japanese Cooking, Seizo Hayashi, chief curator of ceramics at the Tokyo National Museum, discusses the tea ceremony and kaiseki the meal that precedes it. "Creating an atmosphere free of the cacophony of everyday life means more than just creating a brief, happy retreat in a little house. This momentary freedom from everyday cares imposes on those who share it the responsibility of fully utilizing the experience, of being more conscious of their surroundings, of being more fully present and more fully alive during the serenity of the tea ceremony than is possible in the overstimulated world of daily routine. Kaiseki is designed to both aid and provide a focus for the pleasure of living more quietly and more deeply than usual, and hopefully, to have some of this experience overflow into daily life."4
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© 1980 - 2024 Rob Barnard . All Rights Reserved. Site design: eismontdesign
>>decadence", is Peter Voulkos. Voulkos' emphasis on the object as a self-sufficient aesthetic entity untainted by concerns of function and his flawed perception that he was breaking new ground and challenging a worn-out tradition, pushed craft away from the structure that had made it viable and understandable for thousands of years and replaced it with an ethnocentric aesthetic of barely 20 years. In a well-meaning but seriously flawed argument in a 1961 issue of Craft Horizons, Rose Slivka supported this shift of structure from craft to painting. "In the past, pottery form," she wrote, "limited and predetermined by function, with a few outstanding exceptions, has served the freer interests of surface."2 She went on to list three extensions of clay as paint in contemporary pottery: the pot as canvas, the clay as paint, and form and surface opposing each other with colour defining, creating and destroying form. Voulkos' work and the critical constructs that reinforced it put modern craft on a course of diminishing returns yet to be corrected.
The analogies between craft and painting have continued. Vicki Halper in her catalogue essay for the exhibition Clay Revisions: Plate, Cup, Vase, says, "The potter's dismissal of function as a governing premise in the construction of vessels is analogous to the painter's and sculptor's abandonment of realism early in the 20th century. In each case industrialism and technology left their mark: photography created cheap perfect images and mass factory production created cheap perfect forms. This allowed for a separation between traditional craftsmanship and the expression of ideas and feelings in both ceramics and the fine arts."3 There is no question that painting, at its most mundane, was used purely as a vehicle for representation the same can be said of photography today but painting, at its best, was never about mere representation. One could hardly suggest, for example, that Rembrandt's or Michelangelo's works could be replaced by photographs or that, for that matter, the new medium of video can replace the photographs of Walker Evans or Andre Kertez. Each of these disciplines painting, photography and craft has its own structure and responds to cultural change by building on structure, not abandoning it. Modern craft, in its desire to achieve cultural status, however, has rejected its structure, and has been busy trying to construct an ersatz structure from elements of craft's history that fit its agenda.
It is difficult to convince someone that use can be a significant factor in the art experience when few people have actually discovered it for themselves. Unless one has been deeply moved to the point that one's life has been changed, then the belief in the notion of art is an act of faith. It wasn't until I attended my first tea ceremony in Japan that I actually felt the power that use has when it is applied artistically to mundane circumstances like eating or drinking. In the introduction to Kaiseki: Zen Tastes In Japanese Cooking, Seizo Hayashi, chief curator of ceramics at the Tokyo National Museum, discusses the tea ceremony and kaiseki the meal that precedes it. "Creating an atmosphere free of the cacophony of everyday life means more than just creating a brief, happy retreat in a little house. This momentary freedom from everyday cares imposes on those who share it the responsibility of fully utilizing the experience, of being more conscious of their surroundings, of being more fully present and more fully alive during the serenity of the tea ceremony than is possible in the overstimulated world of daily routine. Kaiseki is designed to both aid and provide a focus for the pleasure of living more quietly and more deeply than usual, and hopefully, to have some of this experience overflow into daily life."4
>>
© 1980 - 2024 Rob Barnard . All Rights Reserved. Site design: eismontdesign