Glenn Adamson

Objects: USA 2020 hails a new generation of artist-craftspeople by revisiting a groundbreaking event that redefined American art. In 1969, an exhibition opened at the Smithsonian Institution that redefined American art Objects: USA 2020 united a cohort of artists inventing new approaches to art-making by way of craft media. Subsequently touring to twenty-two museums across the country, where it was viewed by over half a million Americans, and then to eleven cities in Europe, the exhibition canonized such artists as Anni Albers, Sheila Hicks, Wharton Esherick, Wendell Castle, and George Nakashima, and introduced others who would go on to achieve widespread art-world acclaim, including Dale Chihuly, Michele Oka Doner, J. B. Blunk, and Ron Nagle. Objects: USA 2020 revisits this revolutionary exhibition and its accompanying catalog - which has become a bible of sorts to curators, gallerists, dealers, craftspeople, and artists - by pairing fifty participants from the original exhibition with fifty contemporary artists representing the next generation of practitioners to use - and upend - the traditional methods and materials of craft to create new forms of art. Published to coincide with an exhibition of the same title at the renowned gallery R & Company, and featuring essays by some of the foremost authorities on craft at the intersection of art, including Glenn Adamson, curator and former director of the Museum of Arts & Design; James Zemaitis, curator and former head of twentieth-century design at Sotheby's; and Lena Vigna, curator of exhibitions at the Racine Art Musuem; an interview with Paul J. Smith, the cocurator of Objects: USA 2020 is an essential art historical reference that traces how craft was elevated to the status of museum-quality art, and sets its trajectory forward.

The Designs of the Year awards and exhibition, now in its tenth year, is an annual review of the most innovative and thought-provoking projects in contemporary design. Introduced by Deyan Sudjic and Glenn Adamson, this catalogue brings together all the shortlisted projects. It is a snapshot of the most exciting things happening in design right now.

Must form still follow function, as Martin Gropius, Le Corbusier, and their followers proclaimed? Dysfunctional invites a reconsideration of the conventional relationship between artistic expression and functionality. In an exhibition organised by the Carpenters Workshop Gallery in the stunning setting of the Ca'd'Oro in Venice, site-specific works by 17 established and emerging artists explore the boundaries of art, architecture, and design. These contemporary artists draw on the rich heritage of Venetian craftsmanship and the museum's exceptional collection of Italian masterpieces to create a meaningful dialogue about the 20th century mantra of form following function. With work located in the realm between craft and art, each of the artists in the show challenges preconceptions about what is beautiful and what is useful, what is historical, and what is modern. Included here are site-specific installations and furniture-sculpture by Nacho Carbonell, Studio Drift, Vincent Dubourg and Virgil Abloh, organic benches by Wendell Castle and Mathieu Lehanneur, and inhabited clocks by Maarten Baas, among others.

From the canonical texts of the Arts and Crafts Movement to the radical thinking of today's "DIY" movement, from theoretical writings on the position of craft in distinction to Art and Design to how-to texts from renowned practitioners, from feminist histories of textiles to descriptions of the innovation born of necessity in Soviet factories and African auto-repair shops... The Craft Reader presents the first comprehensive anthology of writings on modern craft. Covering the period from the Industrial Revolution to today, the Reader draws on craft practice and theory from America, Europe, Asia and Africa. The world of craft is considered in its full breadth -- from pottery and weaving, to couture and chocolate-making, to contemporary art, architecture and curation. The writings are themed into sections and all extracts are individually introduced, placing each in its historical, cultural and artistic context. Bringing together an astonishing range of both classic and contemporary texts, The Craft Reader will be invaluable to any student or practitioner of Craft and also to readers in Art and Design. AUTHORS INCLUDE: Theodor Adorno, Anni Albers, Amadou Hampate Ba, Charles Babbage, Roland Barthes, Andrea Branzi, Alison Britton, Rafael Cardoso, Johanna Drucker, Charles Eames, Salvatore Ferragamo, Kenneth Frampton, Alfred Gell, Walter Gropius, Tanya Harrod, Martin Heidegger, Patrick Heron, Bernard Leach, Esther Leslie, W. R. Lethaby, Lucy Lippard, Adolf Loos, Karl Marx, William Morris, Robert Morris, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Stefan Muthesius, George Nakashima, Octavio Paz, Grayson Perry, M. C. Richards, John Ruskin, Raphael Samuel, Ellen Gates Starr, Debbie Stoller, Alexis de Tocqueville, Lee Ufan, Frank Lloyd Wright

Co-published in Association with the Victoria and Albert Museum, London This book is a timely and engaging introduction to the way that artists working in all media think about craft. Workmanship is key to today's visual arts, when high 'production values' are becoming increasingly commonplace. Yet craft's centrality to contemporary art has received little serious attention from critics and historians. Dispensing with cliched arguments that craft is art, Adamson persuasively makes a case for defining craft in a more nuanced fashion. The interesting thing about craft, he argues, is that it is perceived to be 'inferior' to art. The book consists of an overview of various aspects of this second-class identity - supplementarity, sensuality, skill, the pastoral, and the amateur. It also provides historical case studies analysing craft's role in a variety of disciplines, including architecture, design, contemporary art, and the crafts themselves. Thinking Through Craft will be essential reading for anyone interested in craft or the broader visual arts.