THE MAINSTREAM: DANGEROUS WATERS

With thanks toe Studio Potter rimpazine,
ond toJohn Perreault himself. we reprint
his Gimety article from the June 1990

sue.

Many now want the crafts to go “main-
atream”. Collectors wish to confirm their
connolsseurship or prtect and increase
their investments. Critics ans] curators,
realizing that there is no certain glory In
championing the crafts, fantasize more
just rewards for thelr idealistic or schol-
arly labors and their expertise.
Craflsworkers hunger to claim their
rightful place as full-fledged artistes equal
to painters and sculptors. Thus they
hope to galn critical attention, increased
homer, and economic parity, which all
add up io a better chance al cultural
immortality.

Whether motivated by idealism or greed,
enthusiasm or ambithon, aesthetic con-
Viclion or insecurity, this effort to gain
mainstream status for contemporary
crafts is problematic. if successful, the
conversion of craft to high-priced art—
which ts what going mainstream seems
to mean—may result in the destruction
of some important principles without
which the crafts become just another
commercdal commodity.

Fortunately, there la considerable re-
alstance to crafts within the mainstream.
To many, the humble materials them-
selves are anathema. Clay. wood. fiber,
glass, metals other than Corten, stain-
less steel. or aluminum—they reek of
work and thus of the body. Pots? They
smell] of use. To me this is to the glory of
the crafts and is a good part of their
epirituallhy; the crafts are concrete. In
the crafls one cannot express ideas
Without substance. It la harder to cheat.
Bul the mainstream view is that the
crafts, unless they are transmogrified
inte lixury Ltems, are low-class, nostal-
Hic, agrarian, or merely therapeutic.

On the other hand, the art market is
Voracious and ever in need of mew art
products that can be bought cheaply
and sold dearly. Thus, class bias and
faulty education eventually may be
overcome by the lust for profit. Dollars
might succeed where critical argument
and visual evidence have failed, But at
what cost? Are the crafts trying to take
up residence tn & burning house?

5 o 6

Purely on aesthetic grounds, much work
producedin contemporary crafts la equal
if not superior to Lhe best conlemporary
painting. YeLitis painting and toa lesser
extent sculpture that are considered
mainatream—that is, culturally and
historically important. Everything else
is marginal or simply irrelevant.
Crafisworkers who worry about such
things—and their supporters amongst
critics, curators and collectors—have
acquiesced to this dubious split. To
make matters even more interesting, in
some quarters, particularly that of ad-
yanced feminism and sociology, the in-
lernalizalion of this false dichotomy has
resulted, rather mysteriously In the
marginal being usedas.a badge ofhonor.

Why don't we simply reverse the terms?
In fact, in thee Light of world art, given the
preponderance of aesthetic production
devoted to works that serve some sacred
and/or utilitarian fumelton, It is con-
temporary painting and sculpture that
is marginal. If this reversal prevails,
would painters and sculptora see this
categorizatlon of thelr work as marginal
aa a badge of honor? [ doubt It.

But haven't the crafts already been ac-
cepted by the commercial art world?
Some ceramic artists are now repre-
sented by galleries specializing in paint-
ing and sculpture. This is also true of a
few glass arlists. Does this mean these
clayworkers are no longer potters or
that glass art is not seulpture? Prices
are going up. The secondary market—
meaning backroom, private or auction
resajle—is blossoming. Does this mean
the crafts are now mainstream?

[am afraid not, Crafts artists are still
second-class citizens without full-scale
critical attention in the art magazines
and are nol honored by art museum
retrospectives or even included in sur-
vey exhibitions of contemporary art. Al-
though they may be mid-career and
acknowledged innovators in their fields,
their works are not sold for anywhere
near the prices demanded by entry-level
painters, What is wrong?

To outsiders, mainstream may mean
the art market, the art galleries, and ihe
national art magazines, but to moat
artworlders it tends to mean nonpolitical
art produced by white, mostly mate,
Euro-American artiets in the fore of—
you guessed It—painting and sculpture.

By John Perreault

Everything else ls beyond the pale: art
by Latinos, Alrican Americans, Asians,
and other people of color, feminist art,
art by worker artists, art with apiritual
intent, anc certainly art that is in tradi-
tional crafts media and thus associated
with the working class, This Wet makes
it clear that the insider division of aes-
thetic production into mainstream and
marginal is notonly economic but politi-
cal,

This so-called mainstream is defended
by the use of argument from rather
limited precedent, suspect historical
determinism, and the invention of can-
ons to justify the exclusion of large
numbers of art objects from critical dis-
course, art history, and therefore, most
tellingly, from the high end of the art
market. This is done in order to main-
tain or create high profits on art invest.
ments. But the concept of the main-
slream was also invented to deprive
eerlain artworkers of arl’s empower-
ment:non- whites, women, and those who
werk or do manual labour for a living.
Recognition of my art is recognition of
me; ] count: [have rights. Aesthetics has
nething to do with the withholding of
this recognition, power does.

As [see it, some real arl values are still
at work within the crafts. though, as
elacewhere, they are threatened by
dreams of glory and the quick buck.
Craftework ia a form of aplritual growth
as Well as an honorable way of making a
living. The object or pot that results is a
gill to the world. The crafts do net insist
that the aesthetic be divorced from the
useful and the decorative. Thus, they
are innately populist.

Those of us whe see the aesthetic worth
of many contemporary crafts objects of
course want to share our perceptions.
This does not mean the solution to crafts
Inviaibility is acceptance by the ocom-
mercial or mainstream art world. Such
acceptance, should tt happen, might
only damage the crafts. The fact is that
the art world is in crisia: commerclaliam
rules, Money has always had its say, but
al least financial interests were onoe
distanced by talk of aesthetic value.
Nonetheless, [ find this new overt oom-
merclalization of art an occasion to re-
joice, [tis so blunt and undisguised we
are forced to think about what we really
want art to be.

March, 1991