So, strictly speaking this book isn’t about making, it is about contemporary art. Contemporary art in its current form is incredibly hard to categorise, gone are the handy isms and schools that allied groups of artists or types of work. Contemporary art is eclectic and there is loads of it. Trying to find common themes or tendencies is almost impossible, there are no barriers left to be broken. However, the authors’ main contention is that there is one area where art today has changed radically from what came before: the ways in which it is made. It is very rare for art to be produced by a lone artist in a studio, using traditional materials. Art today is just as likely to be fabricated by employees, out of ready found objects or digital content, funded by crowdsourcing.
This book critically investigates the making of art and examines the narratives of production in art, because “making is a form of thinking”. The authors believe that the method of making the art work and its conceptual meaning are tightly bound. Which makes this book an important read for any craft maker.
My book choice this month (October 2016) is: Art in the Making by Glenn Adamson and Julia Bryan-Wilson (published by Thames & Hudson). The book was recently featured in Crafts magazine’s book club – the podcast of the interview between editor Grant Gibson and author Glenn Adamson should be online soon [update: you can hear it here!]