Craft at the Limits
Artist Panel and Conference

This weekend of events presented by the Getty Research Institute and the Sam and Alfreda Maloof Foundation for Arts and Crafts offers a new vantage point to assess the social and artistic place of craft in the postwar period. Rather than insist on the relationship between two imaginary monoliths—the craft movement and the art world—the artist panel and conference take the opposite tack by exploring moments in which craft's status as both concept and practice has constituted its appeal and relevance.

These events are open to all—craftspeople, artists, scholars, and members of the general public.

		Artist Panel: Saturday, June 2
		Conference: Thursday–Saturday, May 31–June 2

Artist Panel

Date: Saturday, June 2, 2007
Time: 8:00 p.m.
Location: Getty Center, Museum Lecture Hall
Admission: Free; reservations required.

Leading artists whose practices have been defined in reference to craft—Sheila Hicks, John Mason, and Peter Shire—discuss the term and the way it informs their work. Glenn Adamson of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, moderates the panel.

Conference

Dates: Thursday–Saturday, May 31–June 2, 2007
Locations: The Maloof Foundation on Thursday, The Getty Center on Friday and Saturday
Admission: Free; separate reservations are required for each day.

Day One

Thursday, May 31, 9:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m.
Sam and Alfreda Maloof Foundation for Arts and Crafts
Free; reservations required.

The discussions at the Maloof Foundation look at first-hand accounts on the subject of craft from artists who came of age in the postwar era. Presentations, hands-on demonstrations, and a screening of Craft in America serve to broaden and contextualize the day's event. Participants include Arline Fisch, Garry Knox Bennett, Sam Maloof, Eudorah Moore, Don Reitz, and Carol Sauvion. As space is limited, a separate reservation is required for this day. For details and reservation information, please visit the Web site of the Maloof Foundation.

Day Two

Friday, June 1, 10:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m.
Getty Center, Museum Lecture Hall
Free; reservations required.

Session One: The Country and the City
Borrowing its title from Raymond Williams's 1973 study of the pastoral dynamic, this panel examines the dialectic of urban cool and rural escape that defined Californian identities in the 1950s and 1960s. Craft is often casually associated with styles such as "finish fetish sculpture" by hipsters in Los Angeles, and organic weavings by back-to-the-land hippies in the Bay Area. Yet there has been little serious examination of the way that craft shaped, and was shaped by, this political and social dialectic. Presenters include:

Glenn Adamson, Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Thomas Crow, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles
Andrew Perchuk, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles

Session Two: Feminism
Designed to coincide with the exhibition WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution, on view at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, through July 16, this panel looks anew at the way that feminist artists, historians, and critics took up craft as a subject. Presenters include:

Elissa Auther, University of Colorado, Colorado Springs
Mignon Nixon, Courtauld Institute of Art, London
Jennifer Sorkin, Yale University, New Haven

Day Three

Saturday, June 2, 10:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m.
Getty Center, Museum Lecture Hall
Free; reservations required.

Session Three: Abject Objects
This panel addresses the social marginalization of craft by examining a range of artists—including Janine Antoni, Tracey Emin, Mike Kelley, and Rosemarie Trockel—who have employed craft as a sign of the "abject." Amateurism, class identity, and craft's presumed reference to the body are all potential discussion topics. Presenters include:

Janet Kraynak, Parsons The New School for Design, New York
Helen Molesworth, Harvard University Art Museums, Cambridge
Catherine Lord, University of California, Irvine

Session Four: Queering Craft
The feminist appropriation of craft—the "subversive stitch," as one major exhibition called it—was motivated by a relatively stable sense of craft's coding as feminine. This panel looks at art works since the late 1970s that have tried to "queer" this narrative by not only making the direct connection between craft and gay identity, but also by examining other instances in which craft has been used as an empowering tactic for identity positions—whether based on gender, ethnicity, or class. Presenters include:

Julia Bryan-Wilson, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence
Richard Meyer, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia
Cary S. Leibowitz (CandyAss), artist

How to Get Here
The Getty Center is located at 1200 Getty Center Drive in Los Angeles, California, approximately 12 miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles. See Hours, Directions, Parking for maps and driving directions.