Our popular Emerging Trends seminar series continues with a presentation by Dr Glenn Adamson, Head of Research at the Victoria and Albert Museum, focusing on the influence of craft and design on contemporary visual practice. Dr Adamson holds a PhD in art history from Yale University, and was previously curator at the Chipstone Foundation in Milwaukee. He co-curated (with Jane Pavitt) the exhibition Postmodernism: Style and Subversion, 1970 to 1990, which opened at the V&A in 2011. He has also written widely on craft history and theory, in such books as Thinking Through Craft (2007), The Craft Reader (2010), and The Invention of Craft (2012); and has edited numerous publications including the triannual Journal of Modern Craft, the volume Global Design History (co-edited with Giorgio Riello and Sarah Teasley, 2011), and Surface Tensions (co-edited with Victoria Kelley, 2012).
Dr Adamson will chart developments in the resurgence of making and materiality in contemporary art practice in recent years, looking particularly at the way in which craft and design have served as source material.
Part of Clerkenwell Design Week (21-23 May 2013).
Main image: © Natasha Daintry, Ocean, 2009, slip-cast porcelain 1,000 pots, overall size 240 (l) x 60 (w) x 12 cm (h). Co-acquired through our acquisition scheme for craft, The New Story of Craft through a partnership between Gallery Oldham, Touchstones Rochdale, Nottingham Castle Museum and Art Gallery, Tullie House Museum and Art Gallery, Carlisle and Harris Museum and Art Gallery, Preston. Acquired by the Contemporary Art Society, contributions from the partnership with support from the Art Fund. Image courtesy the artist.