Introduction

Elisabeth Sherman: Making Knowing is an exhibition primarily drawn from the Whitney’s collection looking at the role of craft from 1950 to 2019. 

Narrator: Assistant Curator Elisabeth Sherman.  

Elisabeth Sherman: “Craft,” meaning traditional studio crafts of weaving and ceramics, but also expanded ideas of craft, whether that’s beads or found materials, or ideas of craft techniques and concepts taken up by contemporary artists.

Narrator: Assistant Curator Jennie Goldstein. 

Jennie Goldstein: It has been the case that for some artists, taking up certain kinds of materials and methods, for instance weaving or textiles or ceramics, and bringing those materials and methods into the visual art world—the discourse, the galleries, museums, collector’s homes—is a kind of political act. 

Elisabeth Sherman: Many of the materials and processes used by the artists in this exhibition have been marginalized. They’re not often seen in the same light as painting or sculpting in metal, these kind of big, prominent ways of working in the art world. And often this reason has been because these are the materials associated with or taken up by women artists, artists of color—for reasons of access, whether that be financial access or educational access. And so these associations have kept these materials, just like the people associated with them, in the margins. And part of what we hope to do with this exhibition is to show the inherent power in these ways of working.