AFA Summer 2019

Rooted, Revived, Reinvented: Basketry in America has been traveling the U.S. since 2017. The exhibit is currently showing at the Briggs Museum of America Art, Dover, Del., through April 28, 2019. The show then travels to the Fuller Craft Museum, Brockton, Mass., May 18–August 11, 2019; Ruth Funk Center for Textile Arts at Florida Institute of Technology, Melbourne, Fla., September 21–December 14, 2019. For additional information visit: americanbasketry.missouri.edu. The catalogue edited by Kristin Schwain and Jo Stealey is available through Schiffer Publishing Ltd. (www.schifferbooks.com). Jo Stealey and Kristin Schwain, the School of Visual Studies, University of Missouri, are co-curators of the exhibit . Antiques & Fine Art 95 2019 Fig.10: Work, Aron Fischer (b. 1980), 2014. Ebonized white oak, walnut, leather, synthetic reed, Egyptian paste, steel. Twining, fabrication. H. 24, W. 48, D. 4 in. Lent by the artist (RRR.26). Composed of a Shaker style peg board holding a series of handcrafted implements made from historical and contemporary materials, it appears, at first, to be a historic installation celebrating the Shaker ethos, “Put your hands to work and your hearts to God.” However, the actual utility of the tools remains a mystery. Fischer questions the very conception of handcraft by calling attention to the romanticism that surrounds it; even the Shakers employed industrial methods, like the assembly line and catalogue marketing, to meet the needs of consumers.