C R I T I C ’ S C O R N E R
Koons, M urakam i andM ondini-R uiz undermine
the pu rity ofcategories and tfje hierarchy o f high and
low in ways that reveal how much those distinctions
are dependent on carefully constructed social and
cultu ral realities.
F urfher
Notes on fhe
Art/Craft
Debate
E S S A Y B Y
Eleanor Heartney
FIGURE
1
Franco Mondini-Ruiz
IVestside tVarhol,
2008,
Tex-Mex vintage decor,
Warhol print.
1. Jed Perl, “The
Artisanal Urge,”
American Craft, June/
July 2008, pp. 78-81.
2. Perl, “The Artisanal
Urge,” p. 80.
Like any contested territory, the art/craft border is subject to sniping,
hostage taking, unauthorized land grabs and occasional rapprochement.
Artists firmly embedded in the land of art have been adopting and adapt-
ing media, techniques, objects and even distribution methods commonly
associated with the land of craft. In their hands, these approaches are often
turned to idiosyncratic purposes and are employed in ways that may per-
turb craft-sympathetic observers. But in the end, the blurring of boundaries
can offer provocative new ways to think about the audiences, functions,
social hierarchies and meanings of both art and craft.
Let’s take three examples. Jeff Koons’s prodigious output includes
large-scale ceramic, wood and marble sculptures commissioned from high-
ly skilled artisans. Recently a number of these were exhibited amid the
busts, paintings, tapestries and Rococo decorations of the Palace of Ver-
sailles. Takashi Murakami employs dozens of artists and artisans in a
workshop operation, making products that range from unique paintings
and sculptures to limited-edition designer handbags, plastic figurines and
inexpensive multiples that may be sold in boutique shops tucked into his art
exhibitions. And Franco Mondini-Ruiz recreates the kind of kitschy knick-
knacks—
tchotchkes—more commonly found in dollar stores than museums
or galleries and sells them in settings that deliberately and humorously
evoke the ethnic craft market [
FIGURE l].
Each of these artists uses the craft
association to critique aspects of his own social, ethnic or national milieu.
The strategy is not without detractors. The first two artists were tar-
geted by Jed Perl in an article last year in American Craft, in which Perl
argued that the essence of both art and craft lies in the artisanal impulse,
and that this is precisely what is endangered when artists like Koons and
Murakami remove themselves from the production of their high-end,
beautifully fabricated and often greatly enlarged versions of tchotchkes,
as well as curios and mass-produced designer goods
.1
In this article, a de-
fense of handcraftsmanship in art and craft, Perl also raises the issue of
class, noting that the works of “anti-artisanal” artists like Koons and Mu-
rakami have an “industrial chill [that] is reassuring to an art audience that
knows the chain stores and the suburban malls far better than the galleries
and the museums.”
2
For the artists, however, it is exactly these contradictions—between
high and low, between artisanal practice and factory-style production and
080 american craft
fcb/mar
to
www.journal-plaza.net & www.freedowns.net
Photo Misty Keasler.
