Contemporary artists such as Ghada Amer and Clare Twomey have gained international reputations for work that transforms “ordinary” craft media and processes into extraordinary conceptual art,
from Amer’s monumental stitched paintings to Twomey’s large, ceramics-based installations. Despite the amount of attention that curators and gallery owners have paid to these and many other
conceptual artists who incorporate craft into their work, few art critics or scholars have explored the historical or conceptual significance of craft in contemporary art.
Extra/Ordinary takes up that task. Reflecting on what craft has come to mean in recent decades, artists, critics, curators, and scholars develop theories of craft in relation to art,
chronicle how “fine art” institutions understand and exhibit craft media, and offer accounts of activist crafting, or craftivism. Some contributors describe generational and institutional
changes underway, while others signal new directions for scholarship, considering craft in relation to queer theory, masculinity, and science. Encompassing quilts, ceramics, letterpress
books, wallpaper, and textiles, and moving from well-known museums, to home workshops, to political protests, Extra/Ordinary is an eclectic introduction to the “craft culture”
referenced and celebrated by artists promoting new ways of thinking about the role of craft in contemporary art.
