Craft in the Expanded Field 138 – 155 Erik Scollon

Erik ScollonCraft in theExpanded Field138 – 155“ … in the semantic associations to pottery, ceramics speaks for that branch of culturewhich is too homey, too functional, too archaic, for the name ‘sculpture’ to extend to it.”Rosalind Krauss

For almost thirty years, art schools havewidely circulated art historian RosalindKrauss’ “Sculpture in the Expanded Field”as a lens through which to understandthree-dimensional art. The tool with whichshe unpacked the sculptural practices ofthe 1970s can be useful for understandingthe various forms of craft prevalentthroughout the twentieth century. Today,while the term “craft” is widely used, itsexact significance remains ambiguous.Of the many ways it is used in the contextof art, almost all of them rely on materialidentification: ceramic, glass, fiber, wood,or fine metal. As a starting point, we willfocus on one material, ceramic, to teaseout a logical way to describe four differenttypes of ceramic practice. Once wecan see that craft and sculpture are justtwo points within the field of ceramics,we can better describe their relationshipand make comparisons with other formsof material exploration.Krauss based her schema upon twomaterial identifiers: landscape and architecture.I’ll take a broader approach andinstead use the descriptors functional andmimetic as a way of sketching out a differentlyexpanded field. This will allow for amore flexible methodological tool that canbe applied to other craft materials, as wellas to other forms of artistic practice.Starting Point: Sculpture in theExpanded FieldIn 1979 Rosalind Krauss noted a pluralismin the term “sculpture,” which, as she put it,141

had been “kneaded, stretched, and twisted”by writers and critics so that it couldcover newly emerging three-dimensionalart forms. 1 Earthworks, quasi-architecturalstructures, and other combinations of architectureand landscape were designated“sculpture” as a way to make us feel as ifwe were experiencing work that fit into ahistorical lineage. By categorizing theseobjects as sculpture, she wrote, “the new[was] made comfortable by being madefamiliar, since it [was] seen as having graduallyevolved from the forms of the past.” 2Krauss identified this familiarizing moveas historicist, and explained: “Historicismworks on the new and the different to diminishnewness and mitigate difference.” 3Linking together such wildly differentworks of art as Robert Smithson’s SpiralJetty and Bernini’s statue The Conversionof Constantine was confusing becausetheir respective artistic propositions hadvery little in common. “Sculpture,” Krausswrote, had been “forced to cover such aheterogeneity that it [was], itself, in dangerof collapsing.” 4In the 1970s, artists had been reworkingthe ideas of landscape and architectureboth within the gallery and outside it. Ineither context, in order to be regardedas sculpture, this work needed to be definedas being neither the landscape norarchitecture as such. This is what madeit possible to differentiate an earthworkfrom a garden, and apparently functionlessstructures from “the real space of architecture.”5 Krauss noted that sculpture wasbeginning to be recognized only througha condition of ontological absence: “That[which] is in the room [but] is not really theroom” and that which is in the landscape,but is “not in fact part of the landscape.” 6Sculpture came to occupy the neuteredposition, to be understood only throughthe “combination of exclusions.” 7 As a result,too many things were being classifiedunder the same label.If sculpture had been reduced to acombination of exclusions that did notadequately describe the complexity of currentart practices, Krauss realized that aprojection of the positive combination oflandscape plus architecture could providea more subtle understanding. The projectionshe used is called a Klein group, amapping structure borrowed from mathematicsand 1960s structuralism thatmakes it possible to go beyond the neuteror the negative, into the complex or thepositive. It also makes it possible to thinkin other combinations of both positiveand negative. While mirroring the originalopposition, this diagram also opens it upwithout altering it.Under this schema, the complex isthe positive combination of both landscapeand architecture. Krauss identifiedthese as “site constructions.” She labeledfurther combinations of these poles, suchas architecture+not-architecture, as “axiomaticstructures,” and the combination oflandscape+not-landscape as a “markedsite.” Krauss broke down the stretchedand pluralistic term of “sculpture” intoa broader array of terms with more preciselyidentified meanings. This specificitywas useful in that it helped differentiateseemingly similar objects that had beenuncomfortably thrown together. It also hadthe advantage of avoiding the historicizationof new work through an old term.Craft in the Expanded FieldHaving established Krauss’ work as a startingpoint, I would like to argue that thecurrent usage of the term “craft” is overextendedin a similar way. Because craftpractice often involves historical methodsof making things, the temptation to constructa historical lineage for the work isstrong. But collecting a diversity of objectsand practices underneath a familiar andall-purpose term runs the risk of obscuringtheir differences and causing confusion.The result of this historicism has led towhat can only be called as an identity crisisfor craft. Because of the difficulties inpinning down its meaning, museums andschools have found it easier and more politicto drop “craft” from their titles. 8 Onceasked to embrace new forms of expressionthrough material essentialism or an overlybroad historical context, the term “craft”has, like sculpture, been stretched “tocover such a heterogeneity that it is, itself,in danger of collapsing.” 9A quick newsstand survey of periodicalsdedicated to the promotion ofcraft suggests some cohesion and a unifiedstyle revolving around a select setof materials, whether woven fabric, finewoodworking, jewelry, ceramics, or glass.Once one probes a little deeper into eachpublication, however, a more complex pictureemerges. American Craft and Craft:The Magazine for Contemporary Craft claimalmost every object made of the materialsmentioned above, both functional andsculptural, and discuss them within an artcontext. The Crafts Report aims to helpobject makers working with these materialsmarket their work and navigate thetricky waters of commerce. The new kid onthe block, Craft: Transforming TraditionalCrafts, is a do-it-yourself smorgasbord ofstep-by-step instructions, covering activitiesas diverse as knitting iPod cases and142 Sightlines ⁄ Erik Scollon 143

artists, like Rodin, put clay to the task ofmimetic representation. Yet, in the latemodernist era of the 1950s, ceramic as achoice of material in the service of sculpturecame into question. Krauss clearlyarticulated this skepticism when shesaid:to be a ceramicist-sculptor in the1950s and ’60s was in some essentialway to be marginal to “sculpture.” … Itwas that the medium itself had craftassociations. And these associationsare intolerable to sculpture … Andin the semantic associations to pottery,ceramics speaks for that branchof culture which is too homey, toofunctional, too archaic, for the name“sculpture” to extend to it. 16As she suggests, the critical issue wasthat in the 1950s and ’60s, it was potters,with their background in utility and function,who were putting clay to expressiveuse, not fine art sculptors, who usuallyexploited clay’s mimetic and representationalqualities.The potter most actively investigatingthis problem was Peter Voulkos, who foundthat his utilitarian, vessel-based work wasmarginalized in the galleries and museumsin New York. In response, he chose tointerrogate the conventions under whichhis work was excluded. Krauss herself hasnoted that the condition of marginality canbe useful because it makes available theproblems of assimilation as a fertile groundfrom which to draw inspiration. Artistsworking in the margins are forced to thinkabout the conditions of their exclusion. 17Voulkos responded by toying withthese conditions as he created forms usingthe potter’s wheel. But he then tore, cut,and punched through them in order to reassemblethe parts. His piece Rocking Pot(1956) is one of his early explorations withthis set of ideas [Figure 1]. While recognizablya vessel, this pot seems to be at warwith itself, with cut holes, added protrusions,and strange rockers where the footof the vessel would normally be. Voulkosengaged with the conventions of the vessel—aninterior volume and the idea ofcontainment—but subverted each as hedrew attention to them. Then he statedunequivocally: “I claim this as a pot.” 18 Sothen, how should we understand this work?In the past, it has been labeled as both“sculpture” and “craft,” but it does not fitcomfortably under either term. If, as Krausshas suggested, “Ceramics is too functionalfor the name sculpture to extend to it,” wecan understand why Voulkos would chooseto subvert function. But why not go all theway? Why start with a form so rooted inpottery? Perhaps because he chose to testit against one of the other conventions bywhich we recognize something as art. Hewas denying a mimetic or representationalquality to the material and its forms.Rocking Pot is a push and pull with twodescriptors: function and mimesis. Morespecifically, it is not-functional, and notmimetic.If Rocking Pot is neither sculpturenor craft, how then to describe it?Strategically appropriating Krauss’words, we can call this work an “axiomaticvessel.” Applying it to Krauss’ descriptionof axiomatic architecture, we might say:“The possibility explored in this category isa process of mapping the [the given] featuresof the [vessel form]—the abstractcondition of openness and closure—ontothe reality of a given space.” 19 In this way,Voulkos’ investigation and creation of anaxiomatic vessel matches Krauss’ descriptionof axiomatic architecture.The critics Rose Slivka and Garth Clarkhave identified Rocking Pot as an importantmoment of transition in the pottery/art dialogue. It is also a good point to beginexpanding the notion of craft. 20 If we beginwith the double negative, of not-functionaland not-mimetic, what happens when weproject the positive version of those twoideas? Borrowing Krauss’ words, “Onceone is able to think one’s way into thisexpansion, there are—logically—threeother categories that one can envision, allof them a condition of the field itself, andnone of them assimilable to [the originalterm]. And one has gained the ‘permission’to think these other forms. So our diagramfills in as follows:” 21In this field, the possible combinationof not-functional and mimetic might be adifferent way to describe ceramic sculpture.It seems difficult to imagine thatKrauss was dismissing the entirety of representationalwork in clay. She must havebeen referring to something else. One couldsingle out the work of Robert Arneson asa way to talk about the new ideas aboutsculpture out of ceramic that emerged inthe 1950s and ’60s. Arneson, like Voulkosbegan as a potter with the desire to becomea sculptor. 22Arneson exploited clay’s ability tomimic any shape, and take on any appearance,in order to create expressive, albeitfunky, representational sculpture. In hispiece Funk John (1963), he chose to mimican everyday functional object, [Figure 2]which allowed him to foreground the nonfunctionalquality of his sculpture. Thepiece resembles a functional object, butin no way suggests that it ever could, orwould be used: it is pure mimesis. Giventhat Arneson began as a potter, the “problem”of function was an issue that he wasready to investigate and grapple with, butnot necessarily to avoid entirely. As sculpture,Funk John is the combination ofnot-function and mimesis. But, becauseit referenced the functional and embracedthe hobbyism of colorful, store-boughtglazes, it could not escape what Krauss146 Sightlines ⁄ Erik Scollon 147

Figure 2. Robert Arneson ⁄ Funk John ⁄ 1963 ⁄ stoneware ⁄ 35.8˝ tallFigure 3. Ehren Tool ⁄ First Platoon-detail ⁄ 2007 ⁄ Porcelain with luster and decals ⁄each 4.5˝ x 3.5˝ x 3.5˝called “the semantic associations of pottery.”23 This opened up a rich vein to explorefor ceramics as a self-conceived discipline,with its roots in and semantic associationto function. Soon, Arneson would leave allreferences to function behind, but fromthat point on, his work is best describedas sculpture, under the descriptors notfunctionaland mimetic.Returning to other points on the field,the positive combination of mimetic andfunctional is, I believe, a more helpful wayto understand craft in relation to the waythe term is currently being used. In fusingthe mimetic and the functional, craftobjects can exist in the conceptual spaceof art, while remaining physical facts ofthe everyday that we can use and interactwith. This reframing of the term honorsthe functional history of the material, whileacknowledging the new ways in which theterm “craft” is being applied in a contemporaryarts context.As an example of craft, I’d like to lookat the work of Ehren Tool, whose practiceinvolves throwing thousands of ceramiccups and giving them away. Collaged acrossthe surfaces of these cups are images ofwar and its troubling cultural representations,from archival military documents,the news media, high art, low culture, entertainment,fashion, porn, toys, and theInternet. By plastering war-themed imageryon objects of everyday use, Tool asksus to examine and question the effects ofthe military on our everyday lives, and howour everyday lives in turn affect, or fail toaffect, the military machine. But the workis much more than simply representationand imagery. It asserts itself as an objectof utility [Figure 3].Merely viewing the cup is not enoughfor the meaning of the work to unfold. Bymaking his work more than just images,and putting it in people’s hands, Toolinvolves his audience in the creation ofmeaning. Significance unfolds throughuse, over time. The comfortable weightof the cup in one’s hand, combined withthe knowledge that this precious thingis also breakable, allows it to stand, byanalogy, as a surrogate for human life. Weknow that in war time, people can eitherbe cared for and vibrant, or used up andshattered beyond repair. To drink out of oneof these cups creates a sustained and intimaterelationship, in which one becomessomehow responsible for the cup, in contradistinctionto the images of war we seethrough the media, which are disposed ofas “old news” almost as quickly as they areproduced and consumed. As craft, Tool’swork embraces function as a conceptuallyimportant way to produce meaning. Itderives its conceptual force from the factthat it is a both a drinking vessel in yourhand, and a representation of powers beyondyour grasp.Lastly, in ceramics, the combinationof functional and non-mimetic would goby the obvious name, pottery, as it incorporatesboth utility and non-mimetic, “real”objectness. This is the opposite of functionlessand mimetic sculpture. A teapotmay inspire other associations, but it isabove all a real object, or non-mimetic, if it148 Sightlines ⁄ Erik Scollon 149

is possible to conceive of actually using it.To understand this, we can invoke thework of almost any functional potter workingtoday. To consider their work within theexpanded field is to combine the functionaland the non-mimetic. If one needed to returnto art discourse, it would be possibleto apply a language of “4D formalism” toobjects of everyday use. Functional potscan produce meaning by playing on colorand shape and balance as sensed with theeyes and hands and lips, through use, overtime. In doing so, pottery, like craft, has thepotential to carve aesthetic experiencesout of everyday situations.These four points, expanding the fieldof ceramics, demonstrate how there can bemany possibilities within a single materialchoice. This field splits open the reductivedichotomy of vessel/figure usually employedin ceramic conversations, and itarticulates a more nuanced version of vesselpractices. Just as Krauss noted that notevery three-dimensional art form can befitted within the term “sculpture,” not everyceramic object should exist under the term“craft.” If we continue to call all of thesethings craft, we will always be strugglingto convey our experiences. Each of thesepoints working in different combinationsof function and mimesis contains differentviewer/object relationships.To borrow from Krauss:[This] field provides both for anexpanded but finite set of relatedpositions for a given artist to occupyand explore, and for an organizationof work that is not dictated by theconditions of a particular medium.… It is organized instead through auniverse of terms that are felt to bein opposition within a cultural situation… any single artist might occupy,successively, any one of thosepositions. 24In the context I offer here, the specificmeaning of those words undoubtedlychanges, but we can see how this textlogically describes the way that many ceramicistshave often worked. Althoughdedicated to clay, they easily shift betweenpositions within their field.How then do we relate these examplesin ceramics to other forms of material exploration?No doubt glass, textiles, jewelryand wood could be plugged into this gridin a similar fashion, using combinations offunction and mimesis as analytical tools.For example, there is sculpture carvedout of wood, as well as furniture as a separateand distinct category. An axiomaticchair might be an object that referenceschairness, but does not actually invite anaudience to sit upon it. With these pointsin mind, we can make a more meaningfuland grounded comparison betweenMiriam Schapiro’s patterned fabric assemblagesthat look like quilts and the workof the women of Gee’s Bend in Alabama,who actually made quilts. Schapiro’s workwas treated like painted canvas and destinedfor the wall, referencing a quilt thathad lost its function. The quilts from Gee’sBend might seem formally similar, but theywere intended for real beds, and only laterended up on the wall. The former could beseen as an axiomatic example, while thelatter, I would argue, could be comparedto pottery, in that both are functional andnot-mimetic. These same considerations,turning on function and mimesis, could beextended to glass and metals.If we take this field as a set of operationson cultural terms, we can identifymore specific and meaningful relationshipsbetween the diversity of objects thatare all too commonly grouped together as“the craft materials.” This expanded fieldalleviates pluralism, avoids historicism,and more fully explicates the differencesbetween sculptural forms and utilitarianobjects while undoing the material essentialismthat is usually assumed of thesepractices.A Flexible Model: Comparing Craft andSocial PracticeAnother pluralism of practice, variouslydescribed as relational form, relationalaesthetics, social practice or socialsculpture, shares an affinity with “craft”practices. The limited space of this essaycannot do justice to all the nuances ofrelational form. But, starting with theobservation that both modes of workinghave suffered from the question “Is thisart?” and that that question seems mostdifficult to avoid when utilitarian functionis very obvious in the work, we canuse the same schematic, with the sameterms, function and mimesis, as a way toexplore the similarities between craft andsocial practices. Only a few examples willbe examined here, but they will also helpto unravel some of the differences of practicesand actions that are usually lumpedtogether under one term.I’d like to begin by comparing and contrastingtwo seemingly similar projects,both dealing with food, the gallery as asite, and audience interaction. The firstis Rirkrit Tiravanija’s project Untitled (PadThai), which he performed in numerousiterations throughout the 1990s. Ratherthan presenting a collection of objects tobe viewed, he instead destabilized our expectationsof an art opening by cookingThai curry and serving it to gallery visitors.In doing so, he took the social act of cookingand the social act of eating and claimed“the social” as the form he chose to sculpt.Like Voulkos’ Rocking Pot, this work is bestunderstood under the labels not-functionand not-mimesis. Although Tiravanija wasproviding food to gallery visitors, arguablya functional service, the likelihoodof any of the art crowd actually needingthe meal was slim, and in this sense, itsfunctionality was not stable. Or, to speak of150 Sightlines ⁄ Erik Scollon 151

the created sociability of the visitors, onecould argue that the event merely allowedthe gallerists, artists, and curators of theart world to pursue the conversations theywould otherwise have had at any art opening.The radicality of Tiravanija’s work hasmore to do with the form that it takes, notthe services it provides. Arguably, it takessomething that was once functional andturns it into not-function. Moreover, theviewer, or audience, is not encouraged toread any part of the food or the conversationas representational, which thereforemakes it not-mimetic.Compare this to Jens Haaning’s SuperDiscount (1998), exhibited at FRI-ART inFribourg, Switzerland. In this work,a shop was established in the exhibitionspace, which offered salami …biscuits, canned food, pasta, cheese,… cakes, and sweets. The goods werepurchased in France [and] importedto Switzerland, [where they wouldbe sold as art objects. This allowedHaaning to take advantage of the differingtax rates levied on the sale offood and the sale of art.]. This made itpossible for the visitors of the exhibitionto shop 35 percent cheaper thanin Swiss supermarkets. 25In terms of use value, this is a morestable and quantifiable functional serviceto the visitors. But this work plays with theidea that we must view those things beingsold as art objects, or asks us to read themas representational of something otherthan themselves. Otherwise it would be illegalfor them to be sold at that price. SuperDiscount plays with the mimetic quality ofthe work. Like craft, Super Discount andworks like it in the realm of relational form,turn on the combination of function andmimetic representation.The last comparison I want to makeis between an earlier work, often identifiedas Social Sculpture, and a newer workbetter identified as Social Practice. I’ll useYoko Ono’s Cut Piece (1964) and MichaelSwaine’s recent project, Sewing for thePeople. Both employ clothing as a materialin order to problematize and “sculpt”a social relationship. Their methods andcommentary clearly differ, but I would liketo highlight their structure through the useof this field as an analytic device.In Cut Piece, Ono invited her audienceto come onstage and cut away her clothingwith scissors. In a sense, she sculpted theaudience and their reactions, by implicatingthe social responsibility of the viewer/spectator in relation to the work of art.What I want to emphasize is the way thework is interpreted. First, we understandit as representational, or mimetic. The actof cutting her clothing makes the audienceaware of their relationship to the artworkand the artist, but we also assign meaningto the act, or read it representationally.Second, we can’t see this as functional either.This is not employed as a logical wayto get one’s clothing off. This work dependson mimesis and the not-functional in orderto generate meaning. In the absence of eithernotion, these same actions could betransformed from a social commentary,into an act that could possibly be illegalor threatening. In dual distinction of mimeticand not-functional, it behaves likea form of “sculpture,” which supports thefact that this kind of work has often beencalled Social Sculpture.Compare Cut Piece with MichaelSwaine’s piece Sewing for the People.Since 2005, on select afternoons, he haspushed a foot-powered sewing machine onwheels and set up shop in Cohen Alley inSan Francisco. While there, he mends, freeof charge, any article of clothing that anyonemay bring to him. Passersby interact, anddiscussion invariably ensues. Although thework is grounded in the form of mending, thephysical process of repair acts as the supportfor the actual form, which is the socialinteraction. What I would like to emphasizeis that this work depends upon being bothfunctional and real. If the mending were notfunctional, then the sociability producedwould be radically different. We are not encouragedto read either the mending or theresulting conversation as representational.This combination of functional and not-mimeticputs work of this type into the samespace as “pottery” in our previous field.This expanded field of social practice,which shares the same defining terms asthe expanded field of craft, highlights howartists practicing in each can be seen toshare a sensibility, and work within thesame aesthetic space. There are instanceswhere the work of craft makers could makesense in either field, depending on whetherone takes as a point of departure the objector the social action. Ehren Tool’s work is anexample that easily bridges the two.In closing, I’d like to once again callupon Krauss to support my meaning bysaying that this expansionoccurs at a specific moment in therecent history of art. It seems to meto be extremely important to map[those] structures, and that is whatI have begun to do here. But clearly,since this is a matter of history, it isalso important to explore a deeper setof questions which pertain to somethingmore than mapping and involveinstead the problem of explanation. 26I can sense a shift in the way that makerscreate and relate to their objects, whichis at this moment finding wider supportfrom audiences and critics. Certain kindsof object-making have suffered from thequestion “Is this art?” Once we move beyondthat, by positioning a work within theexpanded field, we can address more profoundquestions, such as: What do peopleexpect from their aesthetic experiences?What does the kind of work we value tell usabout our society and our culture? And aswe begin to note the relational and socialnature of crafted objects, we can consider:What are the implications of aestheticizingthe social or trying to socialize in thespace of aesthetics? Answering this set ofquestions will help us better understandhow and why these ideas can apply to anengaging art practice.152 Sightlines ⁄ Erik Scollon 153

Notes1 Rosalind Krauss, “Sculpture in the Expanded Field,” October, vol. 8. (Spring,1979): 30.2 Krauss, 30.3 Krauss, 30.4 Krauss, 33.5 Krauss, 41.6 Krauss, 36.7 Krauss, 36.8 Debbie Hagen discusses the perceived identity crisis of craft in an article in ArtBusiness News, 2005. “Identity crisis? Naming craft museums proves difficult;some embrace the word ‘crafts,’ while others have dropped it from their names,”(accessed March 7, 2008); see also Carol Kino, “The Art Form That Dares NotSpeak Its Name,” New York Times, March 30, 2005. G8.9 Krauss, 33.10 http://www.bergpublishers.com/JournalsHomepage/TheJournalofModernCraft/tabid/3254/Default.aspx (accessed March 8, 2008).11 The New Oxford American Dictionary, Oxford University Press, 2001, s.v. “craft.”12 Larry Shiner, “The Fate of Craft,” in NeoCraft: Modernity and the Crafts, ed. SandraAlfoldy, NSCAD Press (2007): 34.13 “The new craft movement encourages people to make things themselves ratherthan buy what thousands of others already own.” Carla Sinclair, “The Craftingof Craft: Welcome to the new magazine for the new craft movement,” Craft:Transforming Traditional Crafts, vol. 1 (October 2006): 7.14 The New Oxford American Dictionary, Oxford University Press, 2001, s.v. “craft.”15 “Craft: refers to the products of artistic production or creation,” Dennis Stevens,“Getting Straight to the Point,” Redefining Craft, http://redefiningcraft.dennisstevens.net/?cat=8&submit=GO(accessed March 12, 2008).16 Krauss, “John Mason and Post-Modernist Sculpture: New Experiences, NewWorlds,” Art in America, vol. 67, no. 3, (May-June, 1978): 120.17 Krauss, “John Mason … ,” 120.18 Garth Clark, “Subversive Majesty: Peter Voulkos’s ‘Rocking Pot’” American Art, vol.6, no. 4. (Autumn, 1992): 110.19 Krauss, “Sculpture … ,” 41.20 Rose Slivka, The Art of Peter Voulkos, with Karen Tsujimoto. New York : KodanshaInternational, in collaboration with the Oakland Museum (1995): 14. Clark, 110.21 Krauss, “Sculpture … ,” 38.22 Glenn Adamson, Thinking Through Craft, Oxford; New York: Berg, (2007), 143.23 Krauss, “John Mason … ,” 120.24 Krauss, “Sculpture … ,” 42.25 http://www.nicolaiwallner.com/artists/jens/superdiscount.html (accessedJanuary 15, 2008).26 Krauss, “Sculpture … ,” 42–43.154 Sightlines ⁄ Erik Scollon 155