String, Felt, Thread: The Hierarchy of Art and Craft in American Art
- ISBN13: 9780816656097
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Product Description
String, Felt, Thread presents an unconventional history of the American art world, chronicling the advance of thread, rope, string, felt, and fabric from the “low” world of craft to the “high” world of art in the 1960s and 1970s and the emergence today of a craft counterculture. In this full-color illustrated volume, Elissa Auther discusses the work of American artists using fiber, considering provocative questions of material, process, and intention that bridge the art-craft divide.
Drawn to the aesthetic possibilities and symbolic power of fiber, the artists whose work is explored here-Eva Hesse, Robert Morris, Claire Zeisler, Miriam Schapiro, Faith Ringgold, and others-experimented with materials that previously had been dismissed for their associations with the merely decorative, with “arts and crafts,” and with “women’s work.” In analyzing this shift and these exceptional artists’ works, Auther engages far-reaching debates in the art world: What accounts for the distinction between art and craft? Who assigns value to these categories, and who polices the boundaries distinguishing them?
String, Felt, Thread not only illuminates the centrality of fiber to contemporary artistic practice but also uncovers the social dynamics-including the roles of race and gender-that determine how art has historically been defined and valued.
$18.69
String, Felt, Thread: The Hierarchy of Art and Craft in American Art
I got this book a few days ago, and I must say, I am absolutely thrilled that there is finally a book out that does justice to contemporary fibers-based artistic practices. I teach Fiber and Material Studies in a liberal arts college and have found it to be a challenging task to shift the perception of Fibers beyond traditional techniques of dyeing and weaving. I am going to make this book required reading for my students.
As Auther writes in the Introduction of the book, it is not a comprehensive survey of the history of fiber arts. Rather, the book methodically develops a theoretical framework for three themes that emerged in the 1960s and 70s – fiber art, process or post-minimalist art, and feminist art. Interwoven through out is the art/craft divide on which, fiber artists of this time were putting pressure and pushing the boundaries of what is considered art and what is fibers? The book goes on to present detailed analyses of each of these three themes in individual chapters devoted to each theme. Thorough and brilliant.
More so, becase this framework is very relevant for locating fibers in contemporary art today as well. I only wish Auther will quickly write a sequel for Fiber arts post-1980!!! The Conclusion chapter is packed with contemporary references, and yes, the struggles of 1960-80 did a lot to assimilate Fibers into the mainstream contemporary art establishment, but much still remains to be done. As Auther rightly says in the conclusion, boundaries and hierarchies continue to exist in the art world, and the emergence of installation art, rising internationalism, and the indie DIY movement are the new forces to reckon with.
This book is a validation of sorts. Yes, Fibers based work is art, and this is not even a new debate any more, but for some reason, it keeps coming up – what is up with that? So I am just going to carry this book around with me in my bag, and whip it out whenever that question comes up! Fibers today is more than a list of various media and techniques – it is a sensibility. And a book such as this one really brings that point home. Brava!
Rating: 5 / 5