Podcasts
Denis Longchamps Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
This podcast is intended for educational use only.
This essay will look at the specific history of craft in Quebec and the circumstances, some that are still in place that reinforced the dichotomy between fine arts and craft. This situation proposes a new form of craft discourse, illustrated by contemporary productions that draw from both traditions, that of craft and that of fine arts, to create a new understanding that acknowledges craft history, the materiality of its object and the concept at the core of its creation.
In Quebec, utilitarian tradition persisted in the craft milieu even after the Refus Global challenged social and cultural traditions in 1948, as well as during the Quiet Revolution of the 1960s. Craft production has for a long time been linked to self-reliance and played a socio-political role tied in with the French-Canadian national identity. At the same time, the idea of modernism in the fine arts influenced the diversification of approaches in the creation of craft objects. New approaches brought the need for new categorisations and definitions. What if we are confronted by an object in which function and art cohabitate? One that, from the language of art and the language of craft, creates a new language that is not yet entrenched in bilingualism.
It is clear that artists who produced works that are neither one nor the other (art or craft) nonetheless sit (un)comfortably on the border between the two– a place of their own, a hybrid zone somewhere in between both disciplines yet forcefully present. The contribution of the creators working outside restrictive boundaries, both the ones of craft as well as the ones of fine arts, need to be acknowledged, celebrated and promoted for the health of the craft milieu. Therefore, it seems necessary to acknowledge fine arts and craft traditions in a discourse "that inform both current practices and public perceptions of them" (Robin Metcalfe, 2000), in looking forward to recognising craft object uniqueness, and at the same time, abolishing an unnecessary and archaic hierarchical order.
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L'auteur explore la dichatomie, au Québec, entre le travail de l'artisan et celui de l'artiste, dichotomie fermement établie dans la loi. Le travail de plusieurs cependant, est hybride. L'auteur examine cette situation dans son contexte socio-politique et linguistique, à l'heure où emerge un nouveau discours, celui de l'abolition de cette hiérarchie.