Challenging the traditional notions of craft through design intervention, the new wave of DIY raises the bar for contemporary making.
Last year Aesthetica interviewed Wayne Hemingway, who shared his hopes for an increased creativity and entrepreneurialism through the coming recession. As the country settles from the upheaval of our new political dawn, it鈥檚 timely to assess the successes of this new embrace of Do-It-Yourself, and the established Jerwood Foundation is celebrating the maligned areas of craft and making in a spirit that embraces the creative possibilities of fluctuating mediums with Jerwood Contemporary Makers. Deliberately ambiguous, the term 鈥渕akers鈥 embraces the plethora of creative possibilities that abound with artistic handiwork and the opportunities presented by the recession that we discussed with Hemingway.
The Jerwood Charitable Foundation was established to celebrate and provide opportunities for emerging talent in all areas of the arts, including literature, theatre and dance, with Jerwood Visual Arts as its most renowned branch. The annual Jerwood Contemporary Painters curates the works of a selection of talented, lesser-known painters in a group show that rejects the competitive emphasis of awards such as the Turner Prize with each exhibitor awarded an equal share of the prize fund. Jerwood Contemporary Makers is now in its final year of a three-year programme, paving the way for a reassessment of the categorisation of makers in years to come.
This year鈥檚 exhibition brings together a range of makers practicing in textiles, ceramics, glass, metalwork, jewellery, found objects and woodwork, with 29 practitioners selected by leaders in the fields of metalwork, ceramics and textiles: Hans Stofer, Richard Slee and Freddie Robins respectively. A successful practising textile artist, with works exhibited in fine art, textiles and design contexts, Robins was excited at the prospect of collecting together such diverse works and challenging the boundaries commonly placed on processes. 鈥淭here is no distinct line between making and art, but lines are put in place because they protect certain territories and give certain value. For me it鈥檚 immaterial, for me it鈥檚 about the integrity and quality of the work.鈥
It鈥檚 undeniable that, in spite of its popular explosion in the past 10 years, a certain elitism remains in the world of the fine art gallery, with painting, sculpture and conceptual art the hallowed grounds condescending their 鈥渄esign鈥 and 鈥渃raft鈥 counterparts. An issue which is not least highlighted by the Jerwood Foundation鈥檚 dogmatic and consistent championing of painting while more craft-like works are collected together under the term of 鈥渕akers鈥. Robin offers an explanation saying: 鈥淭raditionally making is seen as the crafts and the applied arts, but it鈥檚 not just craft people that make. I鈥檇 like to think that the term making is very open and it鈥檚 maybe a less fearsome notion. Because making can be a very simple thing and an extraordinary, complex thing and I like that it can cross across these boundaries. Children make things and I like the idea that adults are free and able and willing to make things too.鈥
Describing themselves jovially as 鈥渢he super team of makers,鈥 Robins worked with Stofer and Slee to bring together artists with each concentrating on their own speciality. The result is an organically eclectic range of works representative of creative practice today, all from 鈥減eople whose work we thought represented the best of making and people who weren鈥檛 so well established.鈥 Naturally the gallery setting affected the selection criteria but Robins acknowledges the limitless possibilities of who can be defined as a maker, with architecture, and site-specific art very much a part of the remit, despite its low profile for practical reasons in the exhibition. These exhibiting possibilities for architecture are imaginatively loopholed by David Rhys Jones鈥 image-pasted ceramics depicting his fl芒neur-esque observations around our cities. In-keeping with the rejection of fine art鈥檚 binaries, each work received uniformly demographic treatment, 鈥渆very maker has a single plinth that their work goes on or in 鈥 that was our way of linking the work together in the space.鈥
Despite their disparate mediums, a number of common themes can be traced throughout the works, ranging from political and social critique, conceptual explorations, investigations into our surroundings and interrogations of mass media and 21st century hype. Dawn Youll and Lina Peterson鈥檚 work play with the boundaries of conceptualism in the more practical arenas of ceramics and jewellery. Youll鈥檚 bold abstract forms play with the perceptions that we forge from words and alert us to the inherently arbitrary nature of language, breaking and re-piecing elements of her visual observations to communicate a different message from the same materials. Peterson鈥檚 work employs a similar interrogation of the myriad possibilities of material and form, her at first-sight superficial pink brooch belying the effects of the material beneath on our perceptions outside of the brooch, each piece painted a uniform colour that takes on the qualities of the wood or silver or cardboard beneath. Tomoaki Suzuki鈥檚 sculptures focus on elements of adolescence, which are employed in the construction of identities in formative years. And so sportswear, designer labels, faux-nonchalant posturing and calculated facial expressions accumulate in non-judgemental observations of youth as Suzuki focuses on his materials rather than his subjects, striving to eschew traditional methods in the creation of new techniques for traditionally figurative works. Laura Ellen Bacon and Nora Fok鈥檚 works are both inherently connected to the organic 鈥 Bacon colonises the urban landscape with the subjects of child-like interrogations into nature, and Fok鈥檚 airy jewels almost frogspawn-like in their delicacy, hinting at a future ahead for the unborn within. Social critique comes to the fore in the work of Marloes ten Bh枚mer, as the restrictions of women鈥檚 shoes become works of art in their own right. Traditionally focused on the image rather than the practical, this aspect of women鈥檚 attire showcases the limits of women鈥檚 lib over the years. The shoes are deliberately disabling with the creation of a delicate totter to play up to preconceived notions of femininity. Bh枚mer鈥檚 shoes challenge these stereotypes with non-traditional techniques and materials to create both conceptual and wearable works. While Tony Hayward continues the found object traditions of fine art in the creation of grotesque figurines collected from flea markets around the globe, exploring the practice of deliberate decapitation with the marrying of disparate heads with bodies creating Frankenstein鈥檚 monsters of craft.
Hayward鈥檚 work raises questions of ownership and intellectual property that are particularly pertinent for the textile designers on show, with his own works taken from other makers in a mish-mash of sources and inspirations. As a textiles specialist, Robins is particularly sensitive to these issues of authorship, 鈥渙bviously textiles can be an end product but more often than not someone else makes it to an end product,鈥 and so the opportunity to bring the unsung heroes of fashion centre stage really appealed. She cites the example of Karen Nicol who, having worked for some of fashion鈥檚 biggest names including Chlo茅, Michiko Koshino, Betty Jackson and Julien Macdonald is well-established, but under the radar for most 鈥渟he鈥檚 been working for a long time and she makes highly skilled work, but you鈥檒l see it on the catwalk stamped under someone else鈥檚 name. She is starting to show more under her own name and this was an opportunity to show her so that people can see her work and put her name to it.鈥
The authority of the artist is clearly important to Robins, as is the continued emphasis among her students on working with the hands as opposed to the machine. 鈥淎t one time people thought that technology would take over and everything would be done on computers, but with my students, I don鈥檛 see that. They want to do things with their hands. They want to be physically making not just virtually making, and involved with the material and the process,鈥 with many artists citing the process as the central element of their work. However in spite of this reliance on the traditional, the exhibitors display virtuosity in their selection and use of materials. Joseph Harrington鈥檚 fusing of ice with glass creates a permanent substance from the transient beauty of ice; furthermore, the speed at which he works is significant as his materials rapidly disintegrate around him, reflecting the hectic nature of 21st century existence. Meanwhile, Robert Dawson has manipulated the conservative form of ceramic plates to play with the viewer鈥檚 perceptions in phasing the works in and out of focus, so his Willow Pattern with Uncertainty becomes an Op Art object while rejecting the futurist palette of his mid-century counterparts. Nicola Malkin鈥檚 absurd charm bracelets make the viewer almost Lilliputian, while blowing up the personal connotations of such trinkets onto a far more public scale, and highlighting the constant evolutions of the art with which we surround ourselves in the form of fashion.
It is doubtless that there has been an explosion in craftwork over the past few years, with 鈥淪titch n Bitch鈥 groups springing up around the UK and barely a week going by without the Guardian bringing one new project or another to nimble-fingered readers鈥 attention. For many in the echelons of fine art however, the craft counterpart still seems to lack the kudos of its more 鈥渄ifficult鈥 bedfellows: 鈥淲hen things are super popular we start to be suspicious and think that they can鈥檛 have any value, I like the idea of dropping all titling, saying everything鈥檚 about making and everyone鈥檚 an artist.鈥 Jerwood Contemporary Makers certainly brings the gallery potential to the fore, but its very popularity might be the asset that sees it lose funding and acknowledgement in the difficult times ahead. However, the works on show are truly innovative in their conglomeration of the radical and the traditional, reflecting not only the range of issues on the artists鈥 minds, but also their willingness not to be bound by labels and mediums and to embrace the flexibility of the term 鈥渕aker鈥 鈥 and so perhaps Robins shouldn鈥檛 push for the use of the term 鈥渁rtist鈥 just yet.
Jerwood Contemporary Makers was at the Jerwood Space, London from 17 June – 25 July 2010. .
Ruby Beesley
