Commentary | Jordan Taylor: Contemporary Horcruxes

The mind divides when considering Michael Strand’s view on Ceramics and Social Practice (my phrasing), presented in “25,000 Years: Craft Practice Beyond the Object,” a webinar sponsored by NCECA and the 92nd Street YMCA on March 4, 2015 as part of its Virtual Clay  online program.

Above: Photograph Courtesy of Plants for Patients.

To Strand’s credit the mental division yields more than two parts. As such he articulates the problems in critical analysis of social practice art. His spectrum of cited projects, The AIDS Quilt, Ai Weiwei’s Sunflower Seeds, and Empty Bowls among others, includes his own. All work is allegedly unified by craft as the common thread but with the object adjacent to the outcome rather than as the outcome itself.

“Plants for Patients” (PFP) achieves resonance by anonymously placing plants potted in handmade planters in recovery rooms of clinics offering abortions. PFP’s tagline is: ”Whatever today brings, know that warm and caring thoughts are with you.” Patients choose whether to take the gift home; more than half do. Anonymity here is beautifully generous, especially in solidarity with women still marginalized in exercising their gender specific choice. To gift a living organism to a woman who has elected to end a pregnancy compassionately unpacks some of the complexities of those decisions and does so with her consent. Anonymity also sidesteps the most common, if misplaced complaint about social-relational projects, that the headline artist gets all the credit. Strand named PFP’s founder, a former student of his, but consistent with PFP’s website, I honor their anonymous collective authorship.

The monumental cup assemblages of Ehren Tool, often made while “in residence” in the exhibition space, offer conversational storytelling with the artist, parallel to the narratives in his work. These are narratives we should be more familiar with—Tool is a veteran—and I find the work moving despite my dislike of a trending instrumentalization of the artist-as-museum-educator within the exhibition space. His activity serves as an opening focal point for conversation, allowing a viewer release from anxiety in beginning a conversation with a veteran. This might be art’s highest function, to start difficult conversations, and if Tool can instrumentalize his practice to benefit its message by bringing it beyond-the-object, I commend him for it.

Amber Ginsberg and Joseph Madrigal’s project “K[NE(E){A}D]” is a brilliant move hybridizing traditional figurative sculpture, functional craft tradition and relational esthetics, even if its title is difficult.

Strand’s discussion and the role of craft grow murkier from here. He cites Joel Pfeiffer’s remarkable “Clay Stomps” in which Americans and Soviets (yes, 1989-90) prepared clay for two massive mural projects installed in sister city exchange fashion in Milwaukee and Leningrad. While compelling, their inclusion in the talk is confusing. Nothing about clay murals, or clay preparation, is exclusive to craft practice. Murals reside more firmly in the painting tradition. In hindsight, they appear as a reflection of existing climate more than a catalyst for beyond-the-objectness. Is it fair to conclude that studio practice should reveal rather than catalyze? The impulse to decorate a wall is poignant in its timeliness, with the Berlin Wall so close to its end.

Discussions of factory as craft are fruitful, but Strand cites the factory intensive Sunflower Seeds project without unpacking it. Yes, it involved clay but so do bricks, and they are factory not craft, right? Yes it involved Jingdezhen, a mecca of ceramic output by both folkcraft techniques and factory practices. The opportunity to discuss how Ai “whoops it Jingdezhen style” in Seeds, using factory-as-craft for a 1,600 person authorship is left fallow. What part of it is craft object? What part of it is beyond?

In beyond-the-object practice perhaps adjacency of issues and images is sufficient, but I want there to be more to it. Scholar and author Claire Bishop articulates this exactly: social art looks like many non-art social projects undertaken by non-profit or government agencies. Critics frequently discuss these projects using a socio-economics lexicon. Art is not only permitted, but is expected to embrace contradiction without logic or metrics; not so for other fields. Elsewhere, logic and metrics define success which merits dissemination as public health intervention, eg. While it is difficult to engage social projects in art terms, it also de-arts them to engage solely via non-art disciplines.

Going beyond-the-object in craft practice risks dual deficiencies in critique and efficacy.

In Q and A, I asked Strand if efficacy addressing underlying social or health issues is the goal, or whether we are discussing the Humanities. While he agreed that it was a good way to frame the question, his answer was unsatisfying: “[Sustainable change] is where this is all going, I think…I would like to push that idea around more, perhaps we could discuss at NCECA.” Strand is aware of this problematic art/affecting-real-life binary because he generously described John Gill’s critique of his work: “I like your projects but they come across like communion, more wafer than real flesh.”

The biggest question left for beyond-the-object practice is risk. What might the artist lose or gain? How does that compare with their supporting cast? Volunteers placing gifts are just as vulnerable to anti-abortion protestors outside clinics as patients are.

The whole thing seemed a little like a segue to the unveiling of an app (does everything have to be a f*#%ing app?) that NCECA, Strand, and Portland Museum of Contemporary Craft Director Namita Gupta Wiggers are rolling out in Providence to collect data on meal based events involving ceramics. Will this be a feel good Facebooky moment, or have they articulated real research goals including intrinsic critique of research methods? Is the soul of Craft in the objects themselves or has it always been in the interactions they generate? Can data on those interactions truly inform creative practice?

Has our collective soul already been divided by exactly the number of smart phones (craft objects?) connected to WiFi the moment you read this??

Jordan Taylor is a Chicago based sculptor.

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