Dramatic shifts have taken place recently across the landscape of contemporary craft. Crafted: Objects in Flux, the upcoming exhibition opening on 25 August 2015 at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, focuses on contemporary craft-based artists whose work embraces the increasingly blurred boundaries between art, craft and design. From a suite of vases that create human silhouettes in their negative spaces to a bracelet that anchors its wearer, each artwork in the exhibition incorporates materials, forms or ideas traditionally connected to the notion of “craft,” including furniture, jewelry, ceramics, wood, metals, fiber and glass. Historically, the term has been defined simply: the skillful making of objects by hand. But in the generations since World War II, artists have challenged what it means to “craft” an object, creating artworks that push—or ignore—the assumed boundaries of the discipline. One of the first major exhibitions in an encyclopedic museum to explore the broad possibilities of contemporary artistic engagement with craft, the exhibition features more than 50 works created by 41 emerging and established international artists since 2003, working individually or collaboratively.
“I hope that this exhibition will encourage visitors to expand their perception of what craft can look like and say,” said Emily Zilber, the exhibition’s curator. “I am thrilled to be able to present the works of so many talented artists who have made exciting new artworks through an embrace of shifting boundaries integrated with skillful making.” Crafted: Objects in Flux is organized into three themes, “The Re-Tooled Object,” “The Performative Object” and “The Immersive Object”, and includes works by Anton Alvarez (Chilean and Swedish, born in 1980), Chung-Im Kim (Korean, born in 1955, works in Canada), Andy Paiko (American, born in 1977) and Rowland Ricketts (American, born in 1971). The exhibition will remain on show until 10 January 2016.
