Final Presentation, Summer Integrative Studio/Seminar

Adrienne Reynolds/ Nicola Tulk

Lichengyu Ding

08-04-2013

Glass bottle, spray paint, card, and fabric

What is the difference between art and craft? 


When you hear craft, what comes out in your mind? A travelling souvenir, a piece of woodcarving, a chair or other things? What about art? What is your definition of art? To me art and craft doesn’t have any distinction. They are interrelated. A craft cannot be a craft without certain amount of design. And an artist also needs the skill and technology, which is the craft knowledge, to actualize his/her idea.

For this topic, I choose vases, which are mass-produced in the factory, as the symbol of craft. Similarly, the vase is also the symbol of art, like antique vases in the Museum. The eight vases I processed have same color and shape. But one of them is different. It is labeled with an artist statement and price. People may think about Ai Weiwei’s exhibition, which also used the vases. Both of our pieces reflect to art, but mine is more focus on the difference between art and craft. My purpose of this final piece is to simulate people to think about the following questions:

1.Why the labeled vase can be an artwork?

2.Why others cannot be artworks?

3.What are the criteria of being an artwork?

4.What is the difference between art and craft?

My inspiration is the second creative response for studio class. The responses I got from my teacher and classmates were beyond my expectation. They opened their mind and bring the conversation to another level. Then I decided to make something that can inspire people to think, but not something that show the result directly. The reason why I make the vase with same color and shape is that I want people to focus on the only difference－the label. And think about the above questions.