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Knowing Who, Knowing How: Mingei in the 21st Century | Mingei International Museum — Transcript

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0:05join me in welcoming glenn adamson the
0:09first joyce axelrod lecturer at menge
0:12international museum
0:22hello everybody
0:23it's a bit of a build up i hope i can
0:25live up to it um
0:27so here i am at the most beautiful
0:29podium on earth
0:32and what i think is the most beautiful
0:33craft museum on earth so congratulations
0:37to everybody
0:39um and can we also uh hear it again for
0:42joyce isn't she wonderful
0:45[Applause]
0:47and uh finally i do want to acknowledge
0:49two other people that are in the room
0:50because we are in the luminous presence
0:53of two of the greatest figures in the
0:55history of the craft arts wendy mariama
0:58and arlene fish
0:59[Applause]
1:07yeah this is a heck of a town for craft
1:10so it's a great place to be uh speaking
1:12about this subject
1:14so what i'm going to try to do for you
1:16this evening is give you a sense of
1:18actually where this museum came from so
1:21what is the history of the ming movement
1:23what is minge anyway
1:25and then um hopefully that will be um
1:28you know familiar to many of you but
1:30then what i also want to do is talk a
1:31little bit about what minge might mean
1:33in the 21st century you know it's an
1:36idea
1:37that comes to us from you know over a
1:39hundred years ago now um the term itself
1:43is an abbreviation as many of you will
1:46know from minchiteki koge
1:48uh and believe me i don't speak japanese
1:50so don't worry i won't be shifting into
1:52that mode um but it the the term means
1:54the art of the everyday people
1:57right so it is
1:59i suppose roughly comparable to folk art
2:03in our uh english language but there's
2:05really nothing exactly parallel to it
2:07partly because the idea of the common
2:09people in japan has a certain resonance
2:11or historical resonance and it's maybe a
2:13little bit free of that notion of class
2:15as we might understand it so it's um you
2:18could say the creative expression of a
2:20whole
2:21realm a whole set of walks of life so
2:24here's the the full phrase in in
2:25japanese
2:27and then there are some competing uh
2:28terminology that you also might like to
2:30know about for example bijutsu koge
2:33which is essentially
2:35beautiful artistic crafts so maybe
2:37comparable to what we would say is the
2:39arts and crafts movement or the studio
2:41craft movement so craft leaning in the
2:43direction of fine art and then you also
2:46have the wonderful term crafto
2:48which comes with that sound effect
2:52which of course is the japanese
2:53transliteration of the word craft and
2:56i'm informed that this actually entered
2:58the japanese language in the post-war
3:00era let's say the late 1940s during the
3:02occupation and originally it meant
3:05mass-produced things that look like
3:08they're crafted that we can export to
3:10america
3:12but now it's in more general usage as a
3:15you know essentially an analog for the
3:17way that craft is developed in europe
3:19and america so that's just a little bit
3:21of a sampling of the linguistic cluster
3:24that exists around this concept in which
3:26minge sits in this very interesting way
3:29the the movement itself as i'm sure
3:32you're all aware
3:33was devised and led by soetsu yanagi an
3:36incredibly interesting person in
3:38japanese intellectual and art history
3:41you see him here
3:43the way that he established this concept
3:46the multiple streams really but the most
3:48important of them were through the
3:50establishment of a kind of avant-garde
3:54circle of like-minded aesthetes and
3:56intellectuals which was called shirakaba
3:58which means white birch and you see
4:00there on the left hand side
4:02cover of one of the shirakawa journals
4:04that he and his codery published and
4:07also of course he collected very
4:09actively and in a very interesting way
4:12because he collected not only the works
4:15of his own circle so craftspeople that
4:18he knew and had a kind of alliance with
4:21also of course as the term menge implies
4:24the work of the common people of japan
4:27but what's really fascinating is that he
4:29then extended that idea on an
4:32international basis so it was a global
4:35vision of the expression of the people
4:37the implication here being of course
4:39that
4:40underneath we're all the same that all
4:42cultures have something in common that
4:44there's a kind of creative lifeblood
4:46that runs through
4:48all global creative expressions
4:52and so when martha long and ecker and
4:54her you know her friends then founded
4:57this museum many years later and it
5:00bears the name of course today the minge
5:02international
5:03museum
5:04you have an absolute inheritance of that
5:07idea of a shared universal notion of
5:10artistic creativity very very powerful
5:13and you could say something that's very
5:14precious and needs defending and
5:16championing and a great deal of advocacy
5:19so direct lineage there from
5:21yanagi
5:23it's also important to note perhaps that
5:26he had in mind a kind of paragon model
5:29when thinking about this which was not
5:31japanese but was rather korean
5:34and this was because he had spent a
5:36great deal of time in korea those of you
5:38who have read his beautiful book the
5:40unknown craftsman will perhaps remember
5:42his passage about this object which is
5:45uh called the kizaimon ido bowl you know
5:48is the type of bowl and kazamon is the
5:50name of the bowl you might know that
5:52objects of particularly um
5:55high importance objects that are
5:56venerated particularly within the
5:57context of the tea ceremony often are
5:59given names in japan very poetic names
6:02so this is the kazymon t-ball
6:04and i'm just going to do what i
6:06understand rob does whenever anyone
6:08joins the ming museum staff to wit read
6:11to you from yanagi because this is part
6:14of the uh the sort of boot camp of uh
6:17joining the staff here so
6:18the um
6:19the lines that i have chosen which i'll
6:21just let you read are
6:24what he wrote about because i'm on t
6:26bull and it's a very interesting passage
6:30i'll just give you a chance to read it
6:33particularly interesting here i thought
6:34is this idea that it is one of many
6:37so there is a sense in which this one
6:40bowl
6:41has been plucked
6:43from
6:44the entire
6:45world of ceramics almost arbitrarily as
6:49if to say any bowl could be
6:52given the kind of respect that we're
6:53giving this fall the passage goes on you
6:56can see here
6:57here in this part of the
7:00passage yanagi is expressing what you
7:02might see is the kind of faults
7:05of the bowl so it's asymmetries the
7:07carelessness of it the speed with which
7:10it's uh it seems to have been made it's
7:12almost a casual object and something
7:15that you sense the craftsperson who made
7:17it didn't actually think about very much
7:20as it was being made
7:22which is an extraordinary thing to be
7:23thinking about an artwork that you're
7:25holding up for this kind of
7:28honoring
7:29but then of course he finishes
7:32by saying this is the soul the very
7:34essence of what makes an object powerful
7:37the fact that the maker did not think
7:39about it that it was not an object of
7:41self-consciousness
7:43that it was an object that seemed to
7:45grow naturally organically from the
7:47spirit of the maker and the culture
7:50of which the maker is a part this is
7:52what gives the ball power this is what
7:54makes this object aesthetically resonant
7:58now of course the problem for yanagi and
8:01his
8:02uh his allies was that
8:05they were not
8:07anonymous
8:08peasant potters were they
8:10they were extremely sophisticated
8:12cosmopolitan estates and they could
8:14certainly
8:16go around and collect objects of this
8:19type and here i'm showing you a few
8:20examples the kinds of things that they
8:22loved and are also of course here in the
8:24mingue ming
8:25and whenever i have an object that's
8:27from the minge collection i've just put
8:29the logo there just so you'll know
8:31so for example this wonderful boro
8:34textile which is a kind of recycling or
8:37upcycling we might say today of scrap
8:38textiles often indigo dyed that are
8:42used in the japanese context for
8:43garments and other
8:44textile usages or a beautiful basket
8:47like the one that you see here just this
8:49the gorgeousness of this shape again
8:51from yanagi's point of view would have
8:53come
8:54out uh spontaneously through the process
8:58through the deep
8:59embodied and embedded
9:01lifelong
9:03one knowledge of the maker
9:05or finally this example um have any of
9:08you by chance uh read edmond duval's
9:10book the hair with the amber eyes yes
9:12yes okay so he's his netscape which is
9:14the you know netscape the little toggle
9:16that you wear on the cord off the in row
9:18which is um you know the little weight
9:20for that carrier that japanese people
9:22have uh edmund's book which is so
9:25wonderful um he was writing about just
9:27one hair and you can see here that the
9:29minge version has three uh rabbits so
9:31you know that's good going but um
9:34again this would have been an honored
9:36venerated craft passed down uh in japan
9:39in this case generation after generation
9:42um a kind of professional tradesman-like
9:44attitude to making rather than again
9:47this is the key point a self-conscious
9:50and authored form of creativity
9:53so
9:54this is a an extremely powerful model
9:57that he imparted to us
9:59not only through his writings as i said
10:02the unknown craftsman the translated uh
10:04writings
10:05uh being the most uh influential of
10:07those probably but also his collecting
10:09um at the minge con or the crafts museum
10:12in tokyo that he helped found
10:15and also through the influence that he
10:16exerted on his colleagues like for
10:19example shoji hamada
10:21the wonderful potter
10:23who was right there with the nagis who
10:25was formulating these ideas
10:28hamada as you can see here
10:30to somewhat to some extent affected the
10:32kind of guise of a peasant uh in his
10:35bearing he was very humble not a man of
10:37tremendously many words himself he let
10:39yanagi do the talking um and very
10:41spontaneous in his work as you can see
10:43from the wonderful way in which he
10:45manipulates uh glaze and oxide slips in
10:49decorating his wonderful in this case
10:51tenmoku glazed ceramics
10:54but you can see here
10:56you know in his sort of la corbie j
10:58style glasses that he's also a band of
11:00the world right very much like inagi he
11:04is extremely self-conscious he's
11:06certainly not anonymous
11:08right he is an author of this work and
11:10in some ways an author of objects that
11:13express this paradoxical idea of what it
11:16is to be a sophisticated person of the
11:1720th century almost aspiring to the
11:21condition of anonymity
11:23so it's a kind of impossible goal that
11:26this generation of theorists and makers
11:27have in mind they want to have
11:30the
11:31simplicity the beautiful simplicity the
11:34unpretentious simplicity of people who
11:36can do no other than what they are
11:38making
11:40and yet they're doing it in a highly
11:42self-aware way
11:43that comes through long study collecting
11:46theorization writing conversation travel
11:50fascinating contradiction and one that i
11:52would suggest we all again have within
11:55us now because we all want to have a
11:58real connection to the world around us
12:00and yet we're also presented at every
12:02turn with mediation with digitization um
12:06with commodification all these things
12:08that threaten to distance us from
12:09beautiful objects like this podium right
12:12so whenever we're confronted with a
12:13craft object particularly we're brought
12:16face to face with that challenge with
12:18that kind of paradox that the one on the
12:20one hand we just want to hold it
12:22and feel it and test its weight against
12:25the weight of our own body know the
12:27means of its own making
12:29by some kind of intuitive connection and
12:32we can feel that power and on the other
12:34hand we might wonder well should it be
12:36in an art gallery how much should it
12:38cost should we put it on our instagram
12:40feed
12:41right so that we we have our own way of
12:44working through that set of
12:44contradictions but in many ways this
12:46generation were the first to confront
12:49them
12:49now um just to say that
12:52there were many um adherents of the
12:55ming movement
12:56a particularly fascinating one is shiro
12:58monicata the printmaker see the same
13:01glasses or similar anyway
13:03who again cultivated a kind of
13:05reputation and almost an affect of
13:08vigorous semi-eccentricity
13:12incidentally a pose that had been well
13:14established in japan and china for many
13:16years the idea of the literate literati
13:19or somebody who would
13:20again pose a kind of
13:23madness even
13:24possibly as a way of disengaging with
13:26contemporary political life and again
13:28connecting with something pure or
13:29something more authentic something
13:31deeper so again there's a lot of east
13:33asian artistic tradition flowing into
13:36this movement that someone like munakata
13:37exemplifies
13:39and as i said many of these figures
13:42got particular
13:44influence and inspiration from korea now
13:47one thing that's worth mentioning is
13:48that as many of you will know japan of
13:51course was occupying korea at this time
13:54and had militarily
13:56taken it over in i think officially in
13:591905 korea became a protectorate so it's
14:02also important to know that the reason
14:03that yanagi and munakata and hamada had
14:07such great access to korea was because
14:10of what we would now consider to be
14:12quite a hostile and in many ways morally
14:15reprehensible set of actions on the part
14:17of the japanese government
14:19which i can tell you the koreans
14:20certainly have not forgotten so there's
14:22a kind of political backdrop to this
14:24which yanagi himself was acutely aware
14:26of
14:28and
14:29informed his work as well and you can
14:30often read between the lines that
14:32there's a kind of unease about that
14:34relationship and maybe something that
14:36feels much more immediate to us now
14:38given what's happening in ukraine you
14:40know it was that kind of a situation
14:41frankly that had brought japan into
14:43korea so that might make us read that
14:46passage about the table differently in a
14:48way and it certainly informs the story
14:50that i'd like to move on to
14:52which is that of bernard leach
14:55now leech again a name that probably
14:56many of you will know worked here in the
14:58ming collection uh by him was very close
15:01with hamada particularly leech actually
15:03was born in hong kong we think of him as
15:05british but he was actually born in asia
15:07himself
15:08and ultimately made his way to japan
15:11was involved in the shirakawa search
15:12circle that white birch society that i
15:15mentioned earlier and began to learn his
15:18own way through ceramics particularly
15:20also printmaking drawing a little bit of
15:22painting
15:24here you see him actually building a
15:25kiln with hamada who's the one with the
15:27kerchief on his head um here's a
15:29wonderful early picture of leech
15:32aren't those fantastic slippers
15:35and there's a great bull
15:37and gay collection here
15:39so
15:40again you can see exactly the same type
15:42of person and in many ways he is very
15:44much the british equivalent to yanagi so
15:47much so that the unknown craftsman the
15:49book i've mentioned a couple of times
15:50which many of you will have read was
15:52actually translated under leach's watch
15:54and publicized under leech's watch so
15:56the reason that you've read that book if
15:58you have read it and if you haven't you
15:59should um but uh
16:02the reason that we have that book at all
16:03is because of leach in fact and he's
16:05really to credit for much of yanagi's
16:06influence both in america and in england
16:10but the story that i want to tell you
16:12is to do with this amazing object which
16:15is called the moon jar
16:18again one of many this was a typical
16:20form made in korea
16:22particularly during the cho song dynasty
16:2416th and 17th century expresses a kind
16:26of confusion set of values about purity
16:29simplicity you can see it's undecorated
16:31it's simply made of thrown porcelain
16:33those of you who are potters will have
16:35already spotted that it would have been
16:37very difficult indeed to make in one
16:39piece and it wasn't
16:40so the way that it was created was to
16:42create was to throw two bowl forms and
16:45then join them at the rims so one of
16:47them is upside down on the other and you
16:49can see
16:50there
16:51that there's a kind of irregularity
16:53where the potter has
16:55put these two
16:56hemispheres half domes together and this
16:59is a point of great appreciation for
17:00what it's worth in the connoisseurship
17:02of moon jars the way that that seam is
17:05actually executed and the the fact that
17:07it's not exactly round so it has a kind
17:10of wonky uh beautiful irregularity very
17:13similar to what yanagi was writing about
17:15with respect to the kazymon bowl
17:18now leech actually believe it or not you
17:21know if you go to the the great national
17:23museum in seoul now you'll see many of
17:25these and they're considered national
17:26treasures
17:28leach when he was there in the 20s again
17:30under japanese occupation um he was able
17:33to buy one of these at a thrift store or
17:35like an antique store and just card at
17:37home with him to england
17:39certainly wouldn't happen today but um
17:42much to his credit he understood it as
17:43one of the great masterpieces he had
17:45ever encountered
17:47and what's really remarkable is that
17:49then during the second world war he was
17:51absolutely petrified that it would be
17:53bombed
17:54in his place in london and so he brought
17:58it to his friend
17:59lucy rhee who again you might have heard
18:01of the great viennese modernist potter
18:04you see her here in later life
18:06uh wonderful early uh functional teacup
18:09there on on the left uh here in mingue
18:11in fact there's a whole tea set here
18:13with this beautiful iron
18:15oxide articulation of the rims you know
18:19one of one of the most surpassingly
18:20skilled
18:22and tasteful of all
18:23modern potters really so
18:26he felt that lucy lived in somewhat
18:28safer part of london less likely uh to
18:30actually be attacked by the germans and
18:32he gave her the moon jar and boy did she
18:35keep it
18:36a decade after decade bird leech never
18:39had it back in his possession and
18:41ultimately it did make its way into the
18:44into the uh british museum and
18:46fascinatingly during a project that i
18:48worked on at yale which was about the
18:49history of british ceramics we actually
18:51uncovered a letter between what was sent
18:53by leach to re
18:55essentially saying that
18:57in so many words he was in love with her
18:59but couldn't do anything about it so he
19:01was going to give her the moon jar
19:02instead as a token of his
19:05romantic affection so it's this object
19:07that's absolutely humming with
19:09significance
19:11and you know one of the great things
19:12about it is that without going too
19:14deeply into this part of the story you
19:16know for leech it would have represented
19:19tradition what he called the tap root
19:21you know the way that an object connects
19:22you to past centuries and as i said it
19:24is a 17th century object
19:26for re
19:27who was you know from vienna it was the
19:29city of the secession it was a city of
19:31the avant-garde
19:32and she was the living exponent of that
19:35tradition
19:36the future facing modernism that had
19:38come to ceramics he was perhaps
19:40unsurpassed in that quality so you have
19:42this great traditionalist giving an
19:44object to a great modernist and of
19:46course the object makes complete sense
19:48in both contexts it is an example of
19:51tradition and what tradition holds and
19:53carries but it is also a beautiful
19:55abstract object an unimprovable abstract
19:58object and you can see how close uh ree
20:01was to it and in fact she wore white
20:04almost always and i always wonder that
20:06an idea that came about because of the
20:07moon jar itself this by the way is a
20:09photograph taken by the great lord
20:11snowden he's married to princess
20:13margaret and if you've seen the crown uh
20:15lord snowden's a great character in that
20:17so he took that photo wonderful photo
20:20okay so that's a great story to show how
20:22minge brushes the
20:24sort of ideology if you could put it
20:26that way of minge brushes up against
20:27these other artistic value systems and
20:30can find common cause with them
20:32another fascinating thing about minge is
20:34that true to its international roots its
20:36global uh and pervasive um vision of
20:41world creativity it did in fact make its
20:43way into all sorts of unexpected places
20:46and another uh conduit for that was a
20:51fascinating man called michael cardu
20:54there's a wonderful book called the last
20:55sane man which is a biography of michael
20:58cardu that my dear friend and mentor
21:00tanya herrod the greatest british craft
21:02historian uh wrote a couple of years ago
21:04i highly recommend it if you've read the
21:06unknown craftsman and you've also read
21:08the hair with the amber eyes and you
21:09don't know what to read next read the
21:10last saying man we'll fit right in
21:12and so here's cardu
21:14who was an apprentice of leeches and
21:17imbibed his philosophy
21:19fully and enthusiastically
21:21here in this piece that you can see on
21:23the left
21:24he's really emulating british slipware
21:27and there was a whole interesting
21:28conversation between leach and cardu and
21:30other potters
21:31in england about what the the sort of
21:34british version of chinese song dynasty
21:37pottery or japanese tea ceramics would
21:39be and they settled on the 17th century
21:41slipware as having again this kind of
21:43anonymous expressive quality to it but
21:46fascinatingly during the period of
21:48british imperial expansion almost an
21:51echo of what japan had done in korea
21:53cardio found himself in west africa
21:55originally
21:56making you know roof tiles and you know
21:59sections of water pipe but ultimately
22:02coming into contact with another of the
22:04great figures of 20th century ceramics
22:06lottie quali uh who you see here on the
22:08left and this is one of her great water
22:10jars on the right with this inscrip
22:13inscribed or scrafito decoration
22:16taken from her traditional guari culture
22:18and then given this very modern glaze
22:20and in fact it's a modern material as
22:22well because it's made of stone wear so
22:24a high-fired earthenware body rather
22:26than sorry a high-fired ceramic body
22:29rather than the lower-fired earthenware
22:31that would have been used in west africa
22:33prior to cardio's arrival so it's sort
22:35of cardio importing technology
22:37and quality perfecting it for her own
22:39traditional knowledge
22:42and then just to take the story a little
22:44bit further
22:45uh magdaleno dundo
22:47another great potter
22:50who is kenya born
22:51british trained went to central saint
22:53martins
22:54she makes her way down to west africa to
22:57nigeria and works as it were
22:59atlantically's knee learning uh skills
23:02and again a philosophy from her
23:05and makes objects like the one on the
23:07right and she's now named magdaleno
23:10dundo and is one of the most respected
23:12figures in the british art world many
23:14exhibitions happened in past couple of
23:16years and it's just fascinating to think
23:18that in a way she is a fourth generation
23:22minge figure right because you have
23:24inagi
23:26leech
23:27cardu
23:28quali actually fifth and then magdalene
23:30and then maybe here is a sixth
23:32generation uh minge figure and this is
23:36the story coming full circle because
23:37this is a japanese artist
23:39akiko harai who's come to london again
23:42to train in an art school and makes moon
23:44jars
23:46like the one that you see on the right
23:48and
23:48we had this in the yale show and um one
23:51of the educators docens by the way i
23:53love docents educators so there are any
23:56of you in the room thank you for what
23:57you do um the living soul of the museum
24:00sector as far as i'm concerned one of
24:02the docents i heard her say to um
24:05her audience that you know if like the
24:08korean moon jar was like looking at the
24:10moon
24:11in the night sky then akiko horiz moon
24:14jar was like landing on the moon and you
24:16know the apollo 11 mission and putting
24:19your boots in the rocks right so it's
24:21incredibly textural
24:23again using totally different materials
24:25from the traditional korean choson
24:27dynasty moon jar but extending that
24:29tradition and you but you can see
24:31so much
24:33of what yanagi saw in the kazymon bowl
24:36in akiko horiz moon jar all that feeling
24:40that
24:41power that resonance that an object can
24:44have
24:45but again it's authored you know i just
24:47told you it's made by akiko hawaii it's
24:49sold in an art gallery it's not coming
24:51out of that vernacular folk context at
24:53all and so again we're presented with
24:55this kind of conundrum if
24:58it weren't for the tradition
25:00the vernacular tradition
25:03of korean pottery
25:05then arguably akiko hurai would never
25:07have been able to make this object now
25:09you can easily say well yes glenn but if
25:12not for abstract expressionism
25:14probably akiko hurai wouldn't have made
25:16this object either and that's true but
25:18it does put us in a position where to
25:20have these
25:21seemingly perfect or fully resolved
25:23craft objects artistically expressive
25:25craft objects
25:27we seem to depend on
25:30craft cultures folk cultures that are
25:34either
25:35disappearing or already gone
25:38and how do we cope with that
25:40particularly as technology
25:42and media social and otherwise expand on
25:45and on and on and be beginning to crush
25:48all these very fragile craft cultures
25:50underfoot
25:51now this brings me to the big question
25:53which is what does mean game mean now
25:56what does it mean in the 21st century
25:58certainly it perhaps looks like this you
26:00know it looks like an absolutely
26:02gorgeous artistically expressive object
26:04made by somebody who's informed by the
26:06mengay tradition
26:08but i think it means more than that it's
26:10more than simply a group of individual
26:12objects it is still a philosophy
26:16there's maybe even a politics to it of a
26:17kind politics with a small p don't worry
26:20um there there's certainly an aesthetic
26:23set of principles
26:24and so that's what i want to explore in
26:25the second half of the talk minge now
26:28now first of all i should say that i'm
26:30not the first person to stumble onto
26:31this topic
26:33for example i found this
26:35online which i thought was absolutely
26:37hilarious because the idea that you
26:38would be really interested in minge but
26:40only have two minutes to spare
26:42was absolutely the quintessence of the
26:44dilemma
26:45that i've been trying to describe
26:48this kind of
26:50you know um almost name checking of
26:52minge as if it were itself a kind of
26:55brand rather than a philosophy
26:58is um part and parcel of a whole
27:00phenomenon of
27:03uh
27:04sort of advertising culture and uh you
27:07know commercial mediation around the
27:09concept of craft and you can pick your
27:11own examples two that particularly have
27:13uh
27:14have entertained and amused me or blown
27:16away the
27:18reality tv show about glassblowing where
27:20one person has to win and you know one
27:22person is kicked off every week it's
27:24basically the british bake off but with
27:26glass um or in fact the
27:29great pottery throwdown which is the
27:31british bake off but with pottery and
27:32actually in britain and spoiler alert
27:35ryan won the first season here um
27:38but um you know this is craft that's
27:40been packaged and staged and you know in
27:44a way that's wonderful what would not be
27:46great about a tv show about pottery or
27:49glass that might inspire somebody to
27:51take up that craft and maybe even
27:53dedicate their life to it i'm all for
27:55that but at the same time if you've seen
27:57one of these shows
27:58or any one of the innumerable other
28:00examples of craft being
28:03invoked in this way my favorite example
28:04by the way which i don't have an image
28:06of but i did see on a street corner in
28:08manhattan once was a big sign that said
28:11please come see our handcrafted
28:13condominiums
28:16so
28:17this this kind of
28:19this kind of exploitation
28:21of craft uh
28:23for specific the specific purposes of
28:25commercial success this of course would
28:27have been absolutely anathema to yanagi
28:31to leech
28:32all the figures that i've shown you so
28:33far certainly to cardu who was extremely
28:36left-wing and really anti-capitalist
28:38there was a reason he ended up in a
28:40small village making pottery alongside
28:42lady quality you know so
28:44again we have this this kind of strange
28:47um incommensurate uh double vision of
28:50craft where on the one hand it's the
28:52stuff of advertising on the on the other
28:53hand it's the stuff of taproot as leach
28:56called it and what could be less rooted
28:59arguably than advertising culture
29:01now recently we've had some very
29:03interesting turns in the tale
29:06you know our least favorite subject the
29:07coronavirus has had something to do with
29:10it there was a weird explosion of covid
29:13related crafts
29:14which i have to say probably the main
29:16gay museum in 20 years will do a show
29:18about this and people who are only you
29:20know two years old now will just shake
29:22their heads and wonder
29:24what happened so we have you know um how
29:26to make a coronavirus model out of
29:29plasticine we have coronavirus
29:32um pinatas we have rather wonderfully um
29:36this uh this hong kong based artist um
29:40and then
29:41making these wonderful sculptural masks
29:44it's like well why not you know if you
29:46have to wear one why not do as with
29:48style and some some degree of conviction
29:51and so
29:52this is just the latest example and in
29:54fact to be serious um maybe this was
29:56true in many of your cases or your
29:58family's cases craft was actually a way
30:00for people to get through the period of
30:01lockdown especially people with children
30:03um you know a way to get the hours to
30:05pass in something like a humane fashion
30:08uh and so it was really something people
30:10clinged on to desperately and there was
30:12even a point when there was not enough
30:14personal protective equipment to go
30:16around when craft
30:18based you know maker spaces were
30:20actually leaping into the fray and
30:22making masks and uh protective face
30:24shields and other protective gear for
30:26hospitals so you know it's a real thing
30:28that crafts comes to the fore at a
30:30moment of emergency
30:31um but you know that
30:33unusual set of circumstances aside
30:36i think what's been actually more
30:37typical
30:38is
30:39craft
30:40meeting that culture of mediation that
30:43image saturation that we all are so
30:44familiar with meaning that culture
30:46halfway
30:48so this is a show that uh actually
30:50happened at the museum of arts and
30:51design when i was director there which
30:52was called japanese koge future forward
30:55that included um about ten
30:57contemporary really uh forward-looking
30:59future future facing uh crafts people of
31:02whom probably the most prominent whose
31:04work you see there in the foreground is
31:06takoro kawata
31:07um
31:08who makes these absolutely amazing uh
31:10pots as you can see with very vivid
31:13color oversized they're like tea bowls
31:15that have been shot through with
31:16steroids and then subjected to an anime
31:18film for 24 hours
31:21and um you know they're absolutely
31:23extraordinary extremely sculptural uh
31:25have all the kind of expressionist
31:26qualities of akiko harai but also an
31:28incredible pop technicolor
31:31uh palette and sensibility and what does
31:33he do with them of course he puts them
31:34on his instagram feed which as you can
31:36see is very popular there we go he's
31:38almost up to 40 000 followers last i
31:40checked um which might be even more than
31:43the main guy i don't know i haven't
31:44checked but you know here's a potter
31:46whose career is being carried out in
31:48public on social media and also in uh
31:51very you know high high um high quality
31:54blue chip art galleries he shows in new
31:56york with salon 94.
31:58um so what's fascinating to think about
32:01is to what extent here is the image
32:03proceeding
32:04and affecting the object so here's you
32:07know one of his pots here right here's
32:09the pot
32:11so you can see it properly
32:13and i would suggest to you that this is
32:16a pot that has been
32:18made with the awareness of its own
32:21photographic reproduction in mind and
32:23let me tell you it looks amazing in
32:24person but it also looks amazing on the
32:26screen right
32:28and it knows that it's going to look
32:30unamazing on the screen and tucker knows
32:32that it's going to look amazing on the
32:34screen and
32:35salon 94 gallery knows that it's going
32:38to look amazing on the screen so when i
32:39say the image proceeds and influences or
32:42conditions the quality of the object
32:44that's what i'm talking about it's
32:46something that if you don't mind a
32:47little bit of post-modern theory john
32:49baudrillard who was one of the great
32:51theorists of post-modernism there's
32:52someone who went to graduate school
32:55what he said in 1981 is that the map
32:58precedes the territory very famous line
33:00in other words
33:01the
33:02charting or reproduction or mimicking or
33:06imaging of the world begins to affect
33:08our understanding of the world to the
33:10extent that we can't any longer
33:13deal with it on anything like authentic
33:15terms and of course this is exactly the
33:17opposite of being gay so if you like in
33:19one corner
33:21you know wearing the blue trunks we have
33:23minge with its dedication to
33:26reality to tradition
33:29to cultural continuity and on the other
33:31hand we have
33:33call it post-modernism if you like the
33:34kind of
33:35stuff we're dealing with all the time
33:37through our laptops and our phones
33:39uh in the red trunks in the other corner
33:42and these two things are duking it out
33:43in an object like this which in some
33:46ways is looking winkingly it's kind of
33:48sidelong at the history of t
33:49ceremony ceramics you might know about
33:51the um the technique that's called
33:53kinsuge where you repair a
33:56crack in a t-bowl with gold and lacquer
33:59well this is like kanzugi all over right
34:01and it's got cracks all over so it's
34:03this kind of mannerist overly expressive
34:05version of these traditions and yet at
34:08the same time again it's a completely
34:10post-modern object it's spectacular in
34:13that sense and tucker quad is hardly the
34:16only person that's been thinking about
34:17this individual artists are thinking
34:19about it so here's a british ceramic
34:21artist who was one of the first to
34:22effectively use 3d printing
34:25uh of ceramic that is
34:27in his work and this is a hilarious uh
34:30project where he took the portland vase
34:32the famous roman glass
34:34object which is also like the moon jar
34:36that i mentioned before it's also in the
34:38british museum and then was very
34:40famously reproduced
34:42by josiah wedgwood in the 18th century
34:44in jasperware
34:45so emulating
34:46glass in ceramics and now here comes
34:49michael eaton making the sort of bad
34:51digital version of this it's like a gif
34:54you know those little you know 12k
34:57images um by the way does anyone
34:59remember when they owned a computer that
35:00only had 12k of memory but anyway um
35:03these these bad images very pixelated
35:06and um you know completely inadequate
35:09and you look at this image this this
35:11series of three objects and you think
35:13boy there's nowhere to go but down right
35:16i mean
35:17if you're going to say which of these
35:18objects has the most integrity obviously
35:20it would be the original portland vase
35:22and the wedgewood is sort of in shouting
35:24distance of that and then the michael
35:26eden is in some benign dark corner of
35:29the internet that's completely lost
35:30connection with it and of course that's
35:32what eden is getting at i'm not
35:33saying that that it's his fault i'm
35:35saying in fact that he's creating a very
35:38eloquent object of our times but is this
35:40what we mean when we talk about main
35:42game in the 21st century or for example
35:44is minecraft
35:46what we mean in the 21st century does
35:48anyone know anyone under the age of
35:50eight and does anyone know any child
35:52that's not addicted to minecraft at this
35:53point it's kind of a universal
35:56um
35:57strangely a universal formative
35:58experience of a general generation and
36:01you know i often like to say
36:03that in the world today there are
36:07vastly more barrels
36:09being made on minecraft in a so-called
36:13crafting table
36:14then there are barrels being made by
36:17coopers
36:18right thousands and thousands maybe
36:21hundreds of thousands more barrels being
36:23made on minecraft totally virtual
36:25immaterial
36:27non-objects in non-space
36:30in this game that's supposedly all about
36:33crafting
36:34right so is this what we mean
36:36not this but this what we mean when we
36:40talk about minge in the 21st century i
36:42would certainly hope not
36:44and yet this seems to be where the
36:45action is in some ways so where does
36:47this leave us
36:49and where does it leave objects
36:51that like the kind that the cooper will
36:53make have you ever seen a barrel being
36:55made by hand by the way have you seen
36:56them scorch the inside
36:58have you seen them put the hoops on and
37:01allow the coops the hoops to
37:03um squeeze and tighten around the staves
37:06of the barrel by pouring cold water on
37:09the hoop so that they hug
37:11the wood and the smell of the scorching
37:13oak coming out of it it's amazing and
37:16hardly anybody does it anymore
37:18right so you have this
37:21again in some ways very troubling and
37:23tragic reality that we all are living in
37:25in 2022 where
37:28there's a lot of craft running around
37:30and it's on tv and it's our computer
37:32screens
37:33but it's less and less
37:35being practiced in reality arguably so
37:37where does that leave us where does it
37:39leave objects like the ones in the game
37:41museum and i had a great but extremely
37:44difficult time just picking a few
37:45objects of the wonderful online
37:47collection by the way we're thinking of
37:50course a lot about the building this
37:51week but don't um don't miss the online
37:54offerings of the mingue as well the
37:57online collection um
37:59interface is fantastic and it's a great
38:01research tool so thank you for making
38:02that public to the you know available to
38:04the public but you know the confess that
38:06these uh basically is the indian version
38:08of a quilt um some of you may remember
38:10the exhibition uh that happened about
38:12this material here and there's a
38:14wonderful book that i was just given a
38:15copy of um
38:16in these wonderful objects where there
38:18is no up or down there's a sense of
38:20space there's a sense of orientation but
38:23it's specific to that maker's
38:24imagination or this absolutely beautiful
38:28pacific northwest horn spoon look at
38:31this object and the grace of the lines
38:34of it you know bring koozie your heart
38:36out right um and yet again by by an
38:39anonymous maker you know just as young
38:41said an unknown craftsman
38:44or craftswoman perhaps or at the other
38:46end of the aesthetic spectrum
38:48we have uh more kind of rustic
38:52and intuitive objects less refined like
38:55this wonderful ugandan
38:57airplane hand carved airplane or indeed
39:00the objects that are in um
39:03the uh the show that uh ted cohen um
39:06uh
39:07has uh bequeathed to the museum which
39:09i'll get back to in a second so what
39:11does it mean for these objects and how
39:12are we to think about this well i have a
39:15few suggestions
39:16of how we might think through this
39:17problem more productively and so i'm
39:20going to offer three different
39:22frameworks for thinking about minge in
39:24the 21st century
39:27uh the first of them is
39:29they sound a little surprising at first
39:31but i hope i can
39:32make them make some kind of sense the
39:33first is the idea of the gig economy
39:36and de-professionalization the second
39:40the second is
39:41this uh idea that there is no anonymity
39:44anymore and that this conditions are
39:46relations to one another on a global
39:48basis and the third is the idea of craft
39:51as a possible common ground in what many
39:54have called an age of populism so for
39:57shorthand i'm going to call these three
39:58ideas de-professionalization
40:02globalism
40:03and populism and what will immediately
40:05occur to you is that of course those are
40:07three words that describe minge
40:09right
40:10so
40:11you know
40:12uh de-professionalization check the
40:14anonymous craftsman right maybe a
40:16tradesperson but certainly not a modern
40:18professional in the sense that we use
40:20that term probably somebody who's a
40:21farmer
40:23time and a potter part time
40:25just like the people that drive an uber
40:27part-time and then work at a mcdonald's
40:29part-time right
40:31globalism absolutely that was part of
40:33yanagi's idea from the beginning and
40:34again as i said it's very fully
40:37expressed here at the minge today and
40:39then populism
40:40so a highly charged word in our
40:42political moment but a word that yanagi
40:45or leach would have absolutely
40:47recognized and embraced the idea of the
40:49vernacular of the common people it's in
40:50the very word minge right so how do we
40:53think through these three issues well
40:55i'll take them one in
40:57time in turn um so first the gig economy
41:00which as you can see is everywhere now
41:03what is the gig economy actually like
41:06well often we're led to think that at
41:08its worst it's exploitative
41:11and
41:12um that it
41:13dehumanizes
41:15people that is also part and parcel of
41:17de-skilling right and that it's
41:20capitalism
41:21wreaking havoc with people's lives and
41:23that certainly can be true and i don't
41:25want to under
41:26undercut that idea that the geek economy
41:29does have severe consequences for some
41:31people who are caught within it
41:32particularly those who are already
41:34poor or lack skills
41:36but
41:38the gig economy is also awesome if you
41:40do have skills let me tell you because
41:43what it allows you to do is work outside
41:45of the context of rigid institutional
41:47boundaries and think about what
41:51a skilled craftsperson can do
41:53when they have instagram on their side
41:56they don't need a gallery they don't
41:57need a shop they can sell and do so
42:00directly to a huge global audience
42:02potentially
42:03the gig economy also is actually finding
42:06physical expression in many many places
42:09across the country i'm just using
42:11because i had nice images really i'm
42:12using the example of the box center in
42:14philadelphia which is one of these
42:16places that has lots and lots of studios
42:18you can rent
42:19time on equipment and there's also
42:22mentorship programs attached to these
42:24places often so the idea of the gig
42:26economy in the sense of being transient
42:28or impermanent transitional the idea of
42:31in fact being a maker in constant
42:32transition this is perfect for somebody
42:35who has skills wants to find an audience
42:38maybe become more skilled maybe doesn't
42:40have enough money to actually open their
42:42own shop but does have enough
42:44wherewithal to be able to practice their
42:46craft and in fact the i would argue that
42:49the people who are thriving most in the
42:51gig economy today precisely are crafts
42:53people and that although yes we're
42:55seeing traditional barrel making go by
42:57the side in many other respects we're
42:59also seeing a renaissance of craft
43:02not
43:03in spite of the internet
43:05but actually because of it
43:07not in spite of the gig economy but
43:08actually because of it and a really good
43:11example of this of course would be etsy
43:13right which when it first came out
43:15everyone thought oh this is going to be
43:18an absolute gold mine for individual
43:20makers and then there was a kind of
43:22critical um
43:24sort of uh critical response to that
43:27idea uh a sort of sort of you know lash
43:29back against this idea and in fact the
43:31feeling was that etsy was not actually
43:33all it was cracked up to be and now
43:35quietly over the last few years it
43:37actually has become a really important
43:39platform for people to sell in all sorts
43:41of different uh walks of life i'm not
43:43saying it's perfect and i'm not saying
43:44that you know
43:46that etsy and the ming should just join
43:48hands and sing kumbaya because there's a
43:50little bit of difference between the two
43:51uh the two missions but in fact these
43:54kinds of online platforms are making
43:55craft businesses much much more feasible
43:58and much more robust than they have been
44:01at any point up till now in american
44:03history probably certainly since the
44:0518th century uh when indus industry
44:07began to disrupt
44:09traditional economies and i would
44:11suggest to you that in many ways
44:14the folk art makers who are so
44:17beautifully represented in ted cohen
44:18show the saint of ted cohen upstairs
44:22they are in fact the ancestors of
44:24today's gig economy
44:27makers
44:28de-professionalized
44:30adaptive flexible
44:32making art with one hand
44:35while on the other hand they raise a
44:37family
44:38or
44:39do some other
44:40work
44:41to keep their family fed this is what
44:43folk artists have done we call them folk
44:45artists but actually we probably just
44:47should say the artists in the world
44:49because they've been the vast majority
44:50of them let's face it
44:52well over 99 of artists who have ever
44:54lived are so-called folk artists and
44:56hardly any of them have been
44:57professional artists
44:59right so there's a direct continuity
45:02between what we're seeing now as at
45:04least the potential in the craft world
45:06and the masterpieces that we see
45:07upstairs what about globalism
45:10well globalism again is something we
45:12spend a lot of time worrying about it's
45:13out there with you know robots as a
45:16problem that we're dealing with in our
45:18political economy um the idea of you
45:20know wage flight so that you know people
45:23here in america lose jobs because we
45:24can't compete with what the lower wage
45:27zones in bangladesh or india or latin
45:29america or africa elsewhere so that's
45:32again all true and we have to take
45:33globalism very seriously not just as a
45:36general threat and a general problem but
45:37also specifically a problem for craft
45:40but again boy is globalism expressing
45:43itself powerfully within the craft
45:44sector so any
45:46really really accomplished craftsperson
45:48that you meet today particularly younger
45:50ones like joseph walsh who's in ireland
45:53works with a team of craftspeople from
45:55all over the world so if you go to
45:57joseph walsh's studio and let me tell
46:00you the studio is in the quietest corner
46:02of county court you can possibly imagine
46:04is literally about dirt track
46:07right far flung from any center and you
46:09walk into the studio and people are
46:11speaking japanese and french and italian
46:14because that's where the best crafts
46:16people come from and to make something
46:18like that he needs the best crafts
46:19people around or similarly uh chris
46:22shank no sorry
46:26chris shank um who works in detroit
46:29actually in a neighborhood in detroit
46:30that's informally called bangla town
46:32because of its high uh you know uh
46:35demographic of bangladeshi
46:37uh immigrants in that community um he
46:39employs people from art schools he
46:42employs people from the auto industry
46:44like upholsterers and finnish artists
46:46and he employs women from the
46:48bangladeshi community interestingly only
46:50women so he found when he hired men and
46:51women it didn't work but we hired only
46:54women
46:55it was a perfect atmosphere in the shop
46:58and also obviously they looked fantastic
47:00and in many ways kind of um you know
47:03inspired him in his work the kind of uh
47:06finishes that he
47:07puts on these extraordinary pieces by
47:10the way the the technique is is really
47:12fascinating what he does is to build the
47:14furniture out of junk essentially foam
47:17scrap wood whatever else he can find and
47:19then he covers it with foil like the
47:22kind that you would wrap a candy in or a
47:23chocolate like you know a chocolate
47:25cherry that red foil for example and so
47:27he gets big sheets of that actually from
47:29the confectionary industry
47:31and
47:32the women that work for him are the
47:34specialists
47:35who do the foiling he says he's not good
47:37enough at it they're much better at him
47:39than him so he always lets them do it
47:41and they completely sheath the object in
47:44this bright metallic foil then the
47:45entire thing is covered in resin and it
47:47looks like it's made of precious stone
47:49it's absolutely amazing and it's
47:51entirely made with completely cheap
47:52material with sheer
47:54elbow grease and the inspiration of this
47:56group this you know group of extremely
47:59diverse workers you know 20 25 people
48:01working in the studio at a time and if
48:03that's not globalism in action what is
48:06right so people from all over the world
48:08gather together working in
48:11with one you know in one spirit so again
48:14here's the minge khan in tokyo that i
48:17mentioned before
48:18here's shoji hamada's uh house in
48:21machiko
48:23and these are the equivalent
48:25organizations in japan to the minge here
48:28and they're global
48:31collections of objects and in my mind
48:33they absolutely anticipate and model
48:36what
48:36a humane benevolent version of globalism
48:40looks like and so the argument that i
48:42would make here is that we cannot and
48:44should not
48:45wish away globalism
48:47or put up barriers between ourselves and
48:50other people around the world what we
48:52should do is find ways to creatively
48:54and positively work together with people
48:56of different backgrounds and it turns
48:58out that actually craft is the perfect
49:00bridge
49:01between people of different perspectives
49:03again people that might not even speak
49:04the same language literally and can't
49:06communicate with words but can
49:08communicate through making
49:10and that leads me to my last
49:13example
49:14which is the vexing question of populism
49:17which you know we might think of as a
49:18recent phenomenon in american uh
49:21politics you might look at something
49:22like brexit or some of the politics that
49:24are happening in europe as an obvious
49:26example but hardly uh you know unique to
49:28europe and america you see it in asia
49:31you see it in latin america you see it
49:32in in africa this um groundswell
49:35of kind of grassroots anti-authoritarian
49:38sentiment so that's one version of
49:40populism but of course there is another
49:42version of populism and it's absolutely
49:44essential to living breathing cultures
49:47it's a big part of what i talked about
49:49in the book that rob kindly mentioned
49:51and joyce kindly mentioned and their
49:52introductions craft in american history
49:55which i think is available from the
49:56bookshop upstairs
49:58so you know the idea of craft as wedded
50:01to populism is as old as the country
50:03itself in fact when thomas jefferson
50:06fought with alexander hamilton who you
50:08all know about now because of the
50:09broadway musical
50:11when jefferson and hamilton argued about
50:13what american politics and economy
50:15should be like jefferson was
50:17called the populist and he was the pro
50:19craft guy and alexander hamilton was
50:22thought of as an elitist and he was the
50:25industry guy so we've had this debate
50:27for a long long time and we've always
50:28had it and craft is
50:30not the sole answer to the dilemma it's
50:33one side of our national culture and
50:37it's always been associated with um the
50:40you know the general population and a
50:42kind of anti-elitism but also a form of
50:45progressivism and activism so it also uh
50:48appears at a different moment than our
50:50history very bound up with the civil
50:52rights movement so uh one of the objects
50:54that i used on the cover of my book
50:56which you see there on the right is from
50:58another kind of sibling museum the
50:59africa the american folk art museum
51:02in new york and it's a quilt by jessie
51:04telfair it was made in 1983 but it looks
51:06back to her time in the civil rights
51:08movement and you can see here her
51:11reiterating this word freedom freedom
51:13freedom as if she were quilting the
51:15sound of a march the march on selma in
51:17textile form if you like
51:20so a very obvious example there of civil
51:22rights um in craft action but does
51:25anyone recognize the person on the left
51:28very good rob rosa parks and
51:31does anyone know what rosa parks was
51:33doing before she got arrested on the bus
51:36for refusing to sit in the back
51:38and if you've read my book you're not
51:39allowed to answer
51:42she had just been sewing
51:44because her day job and the reason she
51:46was tired you remember she said i'm
51:47tired i don't want to move my seat the
51:49reason she was tired was because she had
51:50been sewing all day as a seamstress
51:52seamstress in a department store and
51:54while i don't know for sure i would lay
51:56you bought my bottom dollar that that
51:58garment that she's wearing is her own
52:00design and make
52:02and if you look at it for a second
52:03you'll realize it looks handmade or
52:04homemade and that's probably because she
52:06made it
52:07um
52:08there's all sorts of fascinating stories
52:10here about the intersections of the
52:11craft movement especially the
52:13appalachian craft movement and the civil
52:14rights movement but it just shows you
52:17that when we think about populism what
52:19if we think about populism as being
52:21expressed by martin luther king or rosa
52:23parks that's a kind of populism too of
52:25course and they
52:27saw craft as one of their great allies
52:30that kind of self-sufficiency that
52:32personal strength that one derives from
52:34craft was absolutely intrinsic to their
52:37strategy you could say
52:39and that comes right down to the present
52:40day through vocational education and
52:43many other forms of empowerment through
52:45craft
52:46so
52:47um the the idea here then would be that
52:50in all of these cases the idea of
52:53de-professionalization or the gig
52:54economy the idea of globalism and also
52:57the idea
52:59of populism
53:00you do have real and present dangers
53:02that are embodied by those ideas and
53:04they can seem even uncontrollable or
53:06hard to understand they can seem
53:08frightening simply in their scale and
53:09complexity
53:11but it turns out that craft and not just
53:14any old craft but craft in the ming
53:16sense craft in the sense of the beauty
53:18and skill and
53:20capabilities of the everyday people in
53:22our lives all around us we ourselves
53:25those turn out to offer
53:27hope in the sense that they are the
53:29brighter more positive more empowering
53:32and i would say more future facing
53:35versions of those ideas and if there's
53:37anything that this building
53:39represents and really incarnates
53:41beautifully this incredible building
53:43that jen moose and her team have
53:45designed
53:46it is that craft is a future facing
53:49phenomenon yes it's traditional yes
53:52there are lots of old objects in the
53:53collection and we need to know those
53:55histories
53:56but also
53:58a building that's all about craft and
53:59all about folk culture all about minge
54:02the insight and aesthetic realization of
54:05the everyday people
54:07is the most powerful
54:09tool that we have arguably for meeting
54:12these challenges head on and i think
54:14about that when i'm in the library
54:16you know i imagine well for starters i
54:18never really wanted to leave the library
54:19at all once i had entered it it's like
54:21seriously my happy place up there but
54:23you can imagine reading a book about
54:25george nakashima while sitting at one of
54:27those nakajima tables having your choice
54:29of which nakashima table to sit at is
54:31absolutely amazing um when you gaze
54:34through these beautiful textiles that
54:36christina kim has made there's one just
54:38outside the door here which
54:40not only are um you know aesthetically
54:43unified and um of course you know
54:45gorgeous on their own terms but also
54:47speak to the multiplicity and the kind
54:49of multivalent
54:51you know polyphonic quality of craft the
54:54way that many different perspectives and
54:56many different backgrounds and
54:58techniques and materials can be bound up
54:59into one
55:01wonderfully unified experience
55:03even
55:04the presentation of the dale chihuly in
55:06this extraordinary torquing spiral
55:09staircase one of the most amazing spaces
55:11in america now architecturally you know
55:13here we have
55:15in a in a funny way the most well-known
55:18craftsperson living dale chihuly brand
55:21name everybody knows who he is
55:23surrounded by
55:26the most beautifully executed anonymous
55:28craft
55:29all that plaster being done for months
55:31in this traditional italian technique
55:34and what could be more beautiful than
55:35seeing those two different versions of
55:37craft side by side literally
55:38illuminating one another so that's an
55:40absolutely breathtaking demonstration of
55:43how craft can be all of these things at
55:45once and let's not forget by the way
55:47that dale chihuly
55:48does hasn't blown glass since 1982
55:51right so he's also working with a huge
55:53team of incredibly skilled people who
55:55again are the unknown craftspeople
55:58of our own time and of course he's very
56:00good at acknowledging them minge is but
56:02let's not forget that in that sense
56:04craft isn't this simplistic authorial
56:08thing it's not like making a painting in
56:09your studio and signing it in the lower
56:11right hand corner it is something
56:13collaborative often something collective
56:15and that emanates from the spirit of a
56:17group
56:18um and then finally and most importantly
56:20and i think most beautifully realized of
56:21all here at the mingue you have the
56:23relationship between the museum and its
56:25public i have heard uh rob say and i'm
56:27sure you've all heard say ahead and say
56:29that the ming game museum is now the
56:31living room of balboa park
56:34and you know here's the space that we're
56:35sitting in
56:36opened out to the rest of the world
56:39and the sense of
56:40invitation that you get almost no matter
56:43what direction you walk into this
56:45building but i think particularly from
56:47this vantage point and then obviously
56:48walking to the front door
56:50and seeing that incredible space spill
56:52out in front of you the shop on the
56:55right the cafe on the left these cases
56:57that you can just go up and look at
56:58without paying a single sentence and
57:01looking at objects from the collection
57:03and then the sense that you'll simply be
57:05swept upstairs on this tide of creative
57:07inspiration
57:09how amazing is that as an architectural
57:12expression of what craft has always been
57:14and can be in the future how absolutely
57:16intrinsic and essential it is and how
57:19important it is that we have
57:20institutions like this to take care of
57:22it
57:23so i will close by asking you to thank
57:26our wonderful hosts
57:28uh joyce joe and
57:31of course rob jessica
57:34jen who i think is here in the room uh
57:36who jen there she is
57:38and um of course all the people that i
57:40can't name
57:41uh the uh at the moment unknown kraft
57:44people who brought the minge uh
57:46international museum into this glorious
57:47new um condition
57:50you know i've been working in museums
57:51for my entire career and i don't think
57:53i've ever in fact i know that i've never
57:55seen a museum delivered to this standard
57:58with this degree of humanity and people
58:01all
58:02pulling together and making the
58:03seemingly impossible happen and it's
58:05absolutely breathtaking i feel so
58:07honored to have been part of this moment
58:08so thank you very much
58:22you

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