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Craft A secret history of craft told through lost and overlooked texts that illuminate our understanding of current art practice.
“Craft” is a contested concept in art history and a vital category through which to understand contemporary art. Through craft, materials, techniques, and tools are investigated and their histories explored in order to reflect on the politics of labor and on the extraordinary complexity of the made world around us. This anthology offers an ethnography of craft, surveying its shape-shifting identities in the context of progressive art and design through writings by artists and makers as well as poetry, fiction, anthropology, and sociology. It maps a secret history of craft through lost and overlooked texts that consider pedagogy, design, folk art, the factory, and new media in ways that illuminate our understanding of current art practice.
Recently, the idea of craft has been employed strategically: to confront issues of gender or global development, to make a stand against artistic academicism, or to engage with making processes—some distinctly archaic—employed to suggest the abject and the everyday. Craft activism, or craftivism, suggests a new political purpose for the handmade. Deep anxieties drive today's technophilia, and artists, designers, and makers turn such anxieties into a variety of dynamic engagements. The contributors' reflections on new technologies and materials, lost and found worlds of handwork, and the politics of work all throw light on craft as process, product, and ideology. Craft will serve as a vital resource for understanding technologies, materials, techniques, and tools through the lens of craft in contemporary art. [editor summary]
Le goût du cirqueDans le monde du cirque, on marche sur les mains, on vole d’un trapèze à un autre, on pose le pied sur un fil minuscule... L’univers du cirque a fasciné poètes, écrivains, peintres, cinéastes, musiciens. Au-delà de la beauté du spectacle, ils y ont souvent vu le miroir de leur propre démarche artistique. À la différence essentielle que c’est avec sa propre vie que joue l’artiste de cirque sur la piste. Le goût du cirque est singulier : le plaisir du spectateur est souvent un plaisir mêlé de peur et d’effroi. Des clowns aux funambules, en passant par les acrobates, les trapézistes ou les jongleurs, voyage dans un monde à part en compagnie de Victor Hugo, Honoré de Balzac, Jules Verne, Gustave Flaubert, Jules Barbey d’Aurevilly, Charles Baudelaire, Henry Miller, Marie Desplechin, Peter Handke, Jean Starobinski, Jean Genet, Daniel Buren, Michel Butor et bien d’autres… [résumé de l'éditeur]
Narcisse et ses avatarsEn vingt-six entrées vives et accessibles, Yves Michaud pose son regard de philosophe sur les mutations à l’œuvre dans notre société. YouTube, Narcisse, la Com’, le Design, l’Hédonisme, le Sexe ou encore le People, s’entrecroisent et se répondent dans ce petit précis philosophique ultramoderne. C’est à contrecourant des discours alarmistes que le lecteur retrouvera son quotidien, ses obsessions et névroses. Il entrera dans cet abécédaire comme on tend devant soi un miroir, ou un smartphone, et se verra délivrer des clés à la compréhension du monde d’aujourd’hui et de demain. [résumé de l'éditeur]
Acrobates L’exposition Acrobates est réalisée par les musées municipaux de Châlons-en-Champagne en partenariat avec le Centre national des arts du cirque (Cnac) et en co-commissariat avec Pascal Jacob, historien du cirque et directeur artistique du cirque Phénix et du Festival Mondial du Cirque de Demain. À travers les collections des musées municipaux et l’incroyable collection privée Jacob-William, le thème de l’acrobate se décline sous toutes ses formes.
Acrobates met en lumière une sélection d’œuvres de typologies, époques et origines différentes, qui mettent toutes à l’honneur le geste acrobatique. Depuis les sculptures étrusques du ve siècle avant notre ère jusqu’aux œuvres de Picasso, Matisse ou Derain, le thème de l’acrobate est une inépuisable source d’inspiration.
Ce catalogue présente également des prêts de grands musées nationaux et internationaux, grâce à la participation de nombreuses institutions : Musée du Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac (Paris), MUCEM (Marseille), Musées Royaux d’Art et d’Histoire de Bruxelles, Nouveau Musée National de Monaco, Musée National des Arts Asiatiques – Guimet (Paris), Musée Picasso-Paris, Musée du Louvre (Paris), Musée des arts et métiers – Cnam (Paris), Musée Rodin (Paris), Bibliothèque municipale d’Angers, Musée Rolin d’Autun, ainsi que la collection privée « Circus Art Museum J.Y. et G. Borg ». [résumé de l'éditeur]
The art of feminism : images that shaped the fight for equality, 1857-2017Since its inception, the women's movement has harnessed the power of the image to transmit its message. From the posters of the Suffrage Atelier, to the photographs of Carrie Mae Weems, this comprehensive survey traces the ways in which feminists have shaped art and visual culture from the mid-nineteenth to the twenty-first centuries. Featuring more than 350 works of art, illustration, photography, performance, graphic design, and publlic protest, this stunning volume showcases the vibrancy and daring of the feminist aesthetic over the last 150 years. [editor summary]
Making spaces safer : a guide to giving harassment the boot wherever you work, play, and gatherShawna Potter, singer for the band War On Women, has tackled sexism and harassment in lyrics and on stage for years. Taking the battle to music venues themselves, she has trained night clubs and community spaces in how to create safer environments for marginalized people. Now she’s turned decades of experience into a clear and concise guide for public spaces of all sorts, from art galleries to bagel shops to concert halls, that want to shut down harassers wherever they show up. The steps she outlines are realistic, practical, and actionable. With the addition of personal stories, case studies, sample policies, and no-nonsense advice like “How to Flirt without Being a Creep,” she shows why safer spaces are important, while making it easier to achieve them. Eschewing theory, she assumes the reader is already an ethical creature and jumps right in with candor, punk passion, and righteous anger to get the job done! [editor summary]
Support and alignment : in search of balance : sensation, development and creation in equilibristrics : pedagogical guide"It is on the basis of field observations and concrete pedagogical issues that several texts are suggested to deepen, explain or question the notions linked with balance, while giving the floor to those who have animated or participated in the training. While this book is not meant to describe the exercises involved in these practice times, their observation has made it possible to draw threads and to propose different tools that can be transferred to the pedagogical practices of each one. The two main parts of the manual are: building balance and developing a connection with balance. More than methods that impose rules or protocols, these sensitive approaches allow, at a given moment, to formalise the practices and to spread them. For all that, they go far beyond speech and writing and find their full realisation only when the body is in motion. "
The manual makes it possible to formalise the practices of the professionals of today and to disseminate them. The proposals are transferable from one apparatus to another and from one practice to another and allow to start a transversal reflection on aerial skills or, more generally, on the way in which the circus arts are constantly facing, the stakes and difficulties of vertical work, weight and gravity. [editor summary]
Arts du cirque à l'école maternelle : avec Touminus la puceLes arts du cirque, dans les programmes de l’école, relèvent à la fois des activités physiqueset des activités artistiques. Les unités d’apprentissage présentées s’organisent autour des trois activités accessibles: jonglage, acrobatie, équilibre. Elles permettent de développer aussi bien les habiletés motrices (aller vers l’exploit : la difficulté, la maîtrise, la performance) que le jeu d’acteur (introduire un effet esthétique pour toucherle spectateur, le faire rêver, ou produire un effet comique pour le faire rire).
Le conte, dans lequel l’héroïne, Touminus la puce, s’initie avec l’aide de ses amis à la pratique des activités circassiennes, sert de support aux apprentissages, les enfants pouvant aisément s’identifier aux personnages de l’histoire et s’approprier leurs actions et leurs rôles respectifs.
Avec ce nouvel opus de l’équipe EPS des Bouches-du-Rhône, vous avez les clefs pour réussir vos séances d’arts du cirque en maternelle. [résumé de l'éditeur]
The other within : the genius of deformity in myth, culture & psycheDaniel Deardorff knows otherness firsthand. This highly regarded “singer” in the old sense of that word—musician, storyteller, maker of ritual—had polio as an infant and has used a wheelchair most of his life, giving him a lived perspective that deeply informs his views on this subject. In The Other Within, Deardorff starts with a radical notion: to disclose the blessings of outsiderhood, the many gifts and insights contributed to culture by the marginalized and outcast. Unlike studies that stress the plight of the outsider, this one asserts that to be cast down and out of the consensus-worldview affords a difficult yet significant opportunity: to encounter oneself, not as defined by society but as one actually is. An eloquent spokesman for “the man or woman on the weird road,” Deardorff presents dozens of powerful examples from myth and literature to illustrate his message in a richly allusive, complex series of essays. Drawing on the work of mythologians, poets, psychologists, and scholars, The Other Within takes readers on an initiatory journey, uncovering the roots of human identity and imagination and offering insights–including “trickster wisdom”—revealing the mythic underpinnings of everyday life. [editor summary]
Circus life : performing and laboring under America's big top shows, 1830-1920The nineteenth century saw the American circus move from a reviled and rejected form of entertainment to the “Greatest Show on Earth.” Circus Life by Micah D. Childress looks at this transition from the perspective of the people who owned and worked in circuses and how they responded to the new incentives that rapid industrialization made possible.
The circus has long been a subject of fascination for many, as evidenced by the millions of Americans that have attended circus performances over many decades since 1870, when the circus established itself as a truly unique entertainment enterprise. Yet the few analyses of the circus that do exist have only examined the circus as its own closed microcosm—the “circus family.” Circus Life, on the other hand, places circus employees in the larger context of the history of US workers and corporate America. Focusing on the circus as a business-entertainment venture, Childress pushes the scholarship on circuses to new depths, examining the performers, managers, and laborers’ lives and how the circus evolved as it grew in popularity over time. Beginning with circuses in the antebellum era, Childress examines changes in circuses as gender balances shifted, industrialization influenced the nature of shows, and customers and crowds became increasingly more middle-class.
As a study in sport and social history, Childress’s account demonstrates how the itinerant nature of the circus drew specific types of workers and performers, and how the circus was internally in constant upheaval due to the changing profile of its patrons and a changing economy. [editor summary]
Un vaisseau de joie : paroles d'artistesPropos d'artistes recueillis au fil des mois, parfois avec des correspondants du bout du monde, un vaisseau de joie est avant tout une suite de témoignages émouvants, touchants, mais aussi passionnants pour ce qu'ils révèlent des mystères de la création, du sens de l'acrobatie aujourd'hui et... des méfaits du trac de participer à l'un des plus formidables évènements artistiques de l'année!
Un vaisseau de joie donne la parole à des artistes issus des sélections des dix dernières années du Festival Mondial du Cirque de Demain. Ils se confient avec sincérité, enthousiasme et courage et soulignent leur volonté de se mettre en danger, qu'il soit métaphorique ou bien réel. Ils parlent du danger de se blesser, de ne pas faire rire, de laisser s'échapper une balle, mais ils évoquent aussi celui de ne pas être aimés, peut-être le pire de tous...
Un vaisseau de joie reflète également les émotions de celles et ceux qui les admirent, les font briller, les accompagnent dans leurs carrières et les soutiennent en leur donnant, au propre comme au figuré, la vie. [résumé de l'éditeur]
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