Glenn Adamson – författare

An expansive look at the multifaceted American artist Toshiko Takaezu within the history of postwar artmaking  Toshiko Takaezu (1922–2011) was an American artist whose multidisciplinary work in ceramics, painting, sculpture, weaving, and installation innovatively drew from the natural world, combining expressionist energies with influences from East Asia. The closed ceramic forms for which she is best known are effectively abstract paintings in the round. Her reputation as a ceramic artist, however, has obscured the breadth of her output in other mediums and her role within the larger art movements of the twentieth century. This book provides the first retrospective assessment of Takaezu’s art and life, representing her diverse oeuvre, which spanned six decades, and her hybrid identity as an Asian American woman, artist, and teacher.  This ambitious volume features essays exploring Takaezu’s biography, her background as a Hawai‘i-born artist of Okinawan heritage, the relationship between her abstract work and that of her contemporaries, the role of cultural exchange in her art, her impact as an educator, and more. Beautifully illustrated with nearly 300 images of artworks and archival photographs, and including an updated chronology, exhibition history, and recollections from the artist’s former apprentices, the book offers a compelling and comprehensive account of this singular artist’s career.  Published in association with The Isamu Noguchi Foundation and Garden Museum  Exhibition Schedule:    The Isamu Noguchi Foundation and Garden Museum, New York(March 20–July 28, 2024)  Cranbrook Art Museum, Bloomfield Hills, MI(September 11, 2024–January 12, 2025)  Museum of Fine Arts, Houston(March 2–May 18, 2025)  Chazen Museum of Art(September 8–December 23, 2025)  Honolulu Museum of Art(February 13–July 26, 2026)

The image of a tortured genius working in near isolation has long dominated our conceptions of the artist's studio. Examples are abound: think Jackson Pollock dripping resin on a cicada carcass in his shed in the Hamptons. But times have changed; ever since Andy Warhol declared his art space a 'factory', artists have begun to envision themselves as the leaders of production teams, and their sense of what it means to be in the studio has altered just as dramatically as their practices. "The Studio Reader" pulls back the curtain from the art world to reveal the real activities behind artistic production. What does it mean to be in the studio? What is the space of the studio in the artist's practice? How do studios help artists envision their agency and, beyond that, their own lives? This forward-thinking anthology features an all-star array of contributors, ranging from Svetlana Alpers, Bruce Nauman, and Robert Storr to Daniel Buren, Carolee Schneemann, and Buzz Spector, each of whom locates the studio both spatially and conceptually - at the center of an art world that careens across institutions, markets, and disciplines.A companion for anyone engaged with the spectacular sites of art at its making, "The Studio Reader" reconsiders this crucial space as an actual way of being that illuminates our understanding of both artists and the world they inhabit.

A showcase of sculptural works by contemporary artists from around the world  In 2020, the Clark Art Institute opened Ground/Work, an exhibition of monumental sculptures by six women artists that were situated poetically in the bucolic Massachusetts landscape around the museum. Ground/Work 2025 reprises the premise, this time featuring commissioned works with a focus on global conceptions of craft: the means by which artists transform the world around them. Each of the six participating artists—Laura Ellen Bacon (b. 1976), Aboubakar Fofana (b. 1967), Hugh Hayden (b. 1983), Milena Naef (b. 1990), Javier Senosiain (b. 1948), and Yō Akiyama (b. 1953)—exemplifies the way that artisanal traditions can be reinvented, generating contemporary form and meaning. Their works employ a range of materials, including clay, willow, mosaic, stone, wood, and indigo dyeing.  This handsome volume documents the exhibition, providing an in-depth look into the stories of the artworks’ creation. Four of the book’s essays are reflective texts on the Clark’s campus at different times of day: morning, afternoon, evening, and night, enlivened with beautiful photography of each object in the exhibition at these same times of day. Additionally, the book explores larger conversations around craft and making.  Distributed for the Clark Art Institute  Exhibition Schedule:  Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, MA(June 28, 2025–October 12, 2026)

Globalism is often discussed using abstract terms, such as ‘networks’ or ‘flows’ and usually in relation to recent history. Global Design History moves us past this limited view of globalism, broadening our sense of this key term in history and theory. Individual chapters focus our attention on objects, and the stories they can tell us about cultural interactions on a global scale. They place these concrete things into contexts, such as trade, empire, mediation, and various forms of design practice. Among the varied topics included are: the global underpinnings of Renaissance material culturethe trade of Indian cottons in the eighteenth-centurythe Japanese tea ceremony as a case of ‘import substitution’ German design in the context of empire handcrafted modernist furniture in Turkey Australian fashions employing ‘ethnic’ motifs an experimental UK-Ghanaian design partnershipChinese social networking websites the international circulation of contemporary architects. Featuring work from leading design historians, each chapter is paired with a ‘response’, designed to expand the discussion and test the methodologies on offer. An extensive bibliography and resource guide will also aid further research, providing students with a user friendly model for approaches to global design. Global Design History will be useful for upper-level undergraduate and postgraduate students, academics and researchers in design history and art history, and related subjects such as anthropology, craft studies and cultural geography.

Globalism is often discussed using abstract terms, such as ‘networks’ or ‘flows’ and usually in relation to recent history. Global Design History moves us past this limited view of globalism, broadening our sense of this key term in history and theory. Individual chapters focus our attention on objects, and the stories they can tell us about cultural interactions on a global scale. They place these concrete things into contexts, such as trade, empire, mediation, and various forms of design practice. Among the varied topics included are: the global underpinnings of Renaissance material culturethe trade of Indian cottons in the eighteenth-centurythe Japanese tea ceremony as a case of ‘import substitution’ German design in the context of empire handcrafted modernist furniture in Turkey Australian fashions employing ‘ethnic’ motifs an experimental UK-Ghanaian design partnershipChinese social networking websites the international circulation of contemporary architects. Featuring work from leading design historians, each chapter is paired with a ‘response’, designed to expand the discussion and test the methodologies on offer. An extensive bibliography and resource guide will also aid further research, providing students with a user friendly model for approaches to global design. Global Design History will be useful for upper-level undergraduate and postgraduate students, academics and researchers in design history and art history, and related subjects such as anthropology, craft studies and cultural geography.

Today’s artists have an unprecedented level of choice with regard to materials and methods available to them, yet the processes involved in making artworks are rarely addressed in books or exhibitions on art. Here, Glenn Adamson and Julia Bryan-Wilson argue that the materials and methods used to make artworks hold the key to artists’ motivations, their attitudes to authorship, uniqueness and the value of objects, the economic and social contexts from which they emerge, and their approach to the perceived opposition between materiality and conceptualism in art. The book’s introduction sets out a history of trends in artistic production and the possible catalysts for the proliferation of production strategies since the mid-twentieth century, followed by nine chapters that explore different methods and media. Detailed examples are interwoven with the discussion, including visuals that reveal the intricacies of each technique or material and its overall effect when presented as an artwork. Artists featured include Ai Weiwei, Ron Arad, Chris Burden, Katharina Fritsch, Isa Genzken, Jeff Koons, Los Carpinteros, Haroon Mirza, Takashi Murakami, Gerhard Richter, Doris Salcedo and Santiago Sierra

Surfaces are often held to be of lesser consequence than ‘deeper’ or more ‘substantive’ aspects of artworks and objects. Yet it is also possible to conceive of the surface in more positive terms: as a site where complex forces meet. Surfaces can be theorized as membranes, protective shells, sensitive skins, even thicknesses in their own right. The surface is not so much a barrier to content as an opportunity for encounter: in new objects, the surface is the site of qualities of finish, texture, the site of tactile interaction, the last point of contact between object and maker, and the first point of contact between object and user.Surface tensions includes sixteen essays that explore this theoretically uncharted terrain. The subjects range widely: domestic maintenance; avant-garde fashion; the faking of antiques; postmodern architecture and design; contemporary film costume. Of particular emphasis within the volume are textiles, which are among the most complex and culturally rich materialisations of surface. As a whole, the book provides insights into the whole lifecycle of objects, not just their condition when new.

The world’s most important contemporary designers showcase their work within the historic setting of Chatsworth House to shine light and spark conversation on the intriguing juxtaposition of the old and the new, the past and the future, and the evolution of design histories and practices.Chatsworth is an extraordinary environment to experience design: a repository for great works of fine and decorative art commissioned by generations of the Cavendish family for over four centuries. Expanding on the eponymous 2023 exhibition at Chatsworth, Mirror Mirror features the works of sixteen contemporary artists through captivating in-situ photography with accompanying artist biographies and essays that unearth how historic artifacts and environments inform and inspire modern artists' practices today. This diverse group of artists includes Michael Anastassiades, Ini Archibong, Wendell Castle, Andile Dyalvane, Ndidi Ekubia, Najla El Zein, Formafantasma, Joris Laarman, Max Lamb, Fernando Laposse, Jae Sae Jung Oh, Samuel Ross, Chris Schanck, Ettore Sottsass, Faye Toogood, and Joseph Walsh. From lithe, LED lighting structures illuminating the halls of the Chatsworth library to a seating sculpture hand-carved in Iranian travertine in the grand estate’s formal Rose Garden, these modern works create unexpected and timeless connections with the house’s architecture, interiors, furniture, and ceramics.

Glenn Adamson's last book, Thinking Through Craft, offered an influential account of craft's position within modern and contemporary art. Now, in his engaging sequel, The Invention of Craft, his theoretical discussion of skilled work is extended back in time and across numerous disciplines.Adamson searches out the origins of modern craft, locating its emergence in the period of the industrial revolution. He demonstrates how craft was invented as industry's "other", a necessary counterpart to ideas of progress and upheaval. In the process, the magical and secretive culture of artisans was gradually dominated through division and explication. This left craft with an oppositional stance, a traditional or anti-modern position. The Invention of Craft ranges widely across media, from lock-making, wood-carving and iron-casting to fashion, architecture and design. It also moves back and forth between periods, from the 18th century to the present day, demonstrating how contemporary practice can be informed through the study of modern craft in its moment of invention.

Co-published in Association with the Victoria and Albert Museum, LondonThis book is a timely and engaging introduction to the way that artists working in all media think about craft. Workmanship is key to today's visual arts, when high ‘production values' are becoming increasingly commonplace. Yet craft's centrality to contemporary art has received little serious attention from critics and historians. Dispensing with clichéd arguments that craft is art, Adamson persuasively makes a case for defining craft in a more nuanced fashion. The interesting thing about craft, he argues, is that it is perceived to be 'inferior' to art. The book consists of an overview of various aspects of this second-class identity - supplementarity, sensuality, skill, the pastoral, and the amateur. It also provides historical case studies analysing craft's role in a variety of disciplines, including architecture, design, contemporary art, and the crafts themselves. Thinking Through Craft will be essential reading for anyone interested in craft or the broader visual arts.

From the canonical texts of the Arts and Crafts Movement to the radical thinking of today's "DIY" movement, from theoretical writings on the position of craft in distinction to Art and Design to how-to texts from renowned practitioners, from feminist histories of textiles to descriptions of the innovation born of necessity in Soviet factories and African auto-repair shops...The Craft Reader presents the first comprehensive anthology of writings on modern craft.Covering the period from the Industrial Revolution to today, the Reader draws on craft practice and theory from America, Europe, Asia and Africa. The world of craft is considered in its full breadth -- from pottery and weaving, to couture and chocolate-making, to contemporary art, architecture and curation. The writings are themed into sections and all extracts are individually introduced, placing each in its historical, cultural and artistic context.Bringing together an astonishing range of both classic and contemporary texts, The Craft Reader will be invaluable to any student or practitioner of Craft and also to readers in Art and Design.AUTHORS INCLUDE:Theodor Adorno, Anni Albers, Amadou Hâmpaté Bâ, Charles Babbage, Roland Barthes, Andrea Branzi, Alison Britton, Rafael Cardoso, Johanna Drucker, Charles Eames, Salvatore Ferragamo, Kenneth Frampton, Alfred Gell, Walter Gropius, Tanya Harrod, Martin Heidegger, Patrick Heron, Bernard Leach, Esther Leslie, W. R. Lethaby, Lucy Lippard, Adolf Loos, Karl Marx, William Morris, Robert Morris, László Moholy-Nagy, Stefan Muthesius, George Nakashima, Octavio Paz, Grayson Perry, M. C. Richards, John Ruskin, Raphael Samuel, Ellen Gates Starr, Debbie Stoller, Alexis de Tocqueville, Lee Ufan, Frank Lloyd Wright

Things matter. So why are we losing touch with them?From the former director of the Museum of Arts and Design in New York comes a timely and passionate case for the role of the well-designed object in the digital age. In this delightful exploration of craft in its many forms, curator and scholar Glenn Adamson explores how raw materials, tools, design and technique come together to produce objects of beauty and utility. A thoughtful meditation on the value of care and attention in an age of disappearing things, Fewer, Better Things invites us to reconnect with the physical world and its objects.

Objects: USA 2020 hails a new generation of artist-craftspeople by revisiting a groundbreaking event that redefined American art. In 1969, an exhibition opened at the Smithsonian Institution that redefined American artObjects: USA 2020 united a cohort of artists inventing new approaches to art-making by way of craft media. Subsequently touring to twenty-two museums across the country, where it was viewed by over half a million Americans, and then to eleven cities in Europe, the exhibition canonized such artists as Anni Albers, Sheila Hicks, Wharton Esherick, Wendell Castle, and George Nakashima, and introduced others who would go on to achieve widespread art-world acclaim, including Dale Chihuly, Michele Oka Doner, J. B. Blunk, and Ron Nagle.Objects: USA 2020 revisits this revolutionary exhibition and its accompanying catalog - which has become a bible of sorts to curators, gallerists, dealers, craftspeople, and artists - by pairing fifty participants from the original exhibition with fifty contemporary artists representing the next generation of practitioners to use - and upend - the traditional methods and materials of craft to create new forms of art.Published to coincide with an exhibition of the same title at the renowned gallery R & Company, and featuring essays by some of the foremost authorities on craft at the intersection of art, including Glenn Adamson, curator and former director of the Museum of Arts & Design; James Zemaitis, curator and former head of twentieth-century design at Sotheby's; and Lena Vigna, curator of exhibitions at the Racine Art Musuem; an interview with Paul J. Smith, the cocurator ofObjects: USA 2020 is an essential art historical reference that traces how craft was elevated to the status of museum-quality art, and sets its trajectory forward.

The definitive volume on the late Gaetano Pesce’s incomparable life and career, as told in the artist-designer’s own wordsIn a category all his own, Gaetano Pesce (1939-2024) was widely considered one of the most important, and elusive, creative figures of the last half century. Bridging numerous key art and design movements, while never belonging to any of them, Pesce’s singular practice was steadfastly provocative, defying convention, utility, and good taste.Glenn Adamson, the acclaimed curator and writer, conducted the wide-ranging interview with Pesce on which this book is based, drawing out new stories and insights, as well as providing an introduction that thoroughly contextualizes Pesce’s unique position in contemporary art and design. As postmodern design has become increasingly desirable, interest in Pesce has grown with renewed exhibition activity and critical attention, and his work has become even more valuable and collectible.In this long overdue summary co-published with Salon 94, Pesce looks back at his incomparable and wildly inventive career, recounting his life and practice in his own words.

The most comprehensive monograph available on the greatest living glassblower, Lino TagliapietraLino Tagliapietra has been described as the world’s greatest glassblower, a figure born from the five-hundred-year-old culture of Venetian glass, but one who also revolutionized glass as a discipline, inventing new techniques to create his masterful works. Even more astonishing, as Tagliapietra hit his full stride, he has become a notable figure in the unfolding story of modern sculpture – an artist whose distinctive works are coveted by collectors of contemporary abstract art and whose vision makes us think about art history in new and profound ways.This is the most comprehensive monograph available on his work and features insightful texts by Glenn Adamson and Henry Adams, as well as hundreds of new photographs, which showcase the impressive breadth and depth of Taglipietra’s repertoire.

A fresh perspective on the work of Keith Haring - one of the world’s most beloved contemporary artists - with a special focus on his three-dimensional workFrom the moment he landed in NYC in 1978, Keith Haring took three-dimensional objects - whether discards on the street, household appliances, or subway walls - as his atypical canvas. From cars to vases to refrigerators and even a sarcophagus, these could often be rich sites of collaboration with artist contemporaries including Jean-Michel Basquiat, Kenny Scharf, and LA2 (Angel Ortiz) among others. Extending his unmistakable mark-making to clothes, stage sets, and bodies inspired creative connections beyond the boundaries of the art world: Haring collaborated with the likes of Grace Jones, Bill T. Jones, Madonna, and Annie Leibovitz, the last of whom photographed Haring in an now-famous session during which he made his own body a canvas, painting himself to blend into an elaborate 3D environment. Although his career was brief, Keith Haring’s sculpture practice was a significant and integral facet of his extensive oeuvre, with his three-dimensional artworks found in museums and art collections worldwide.Published to coincide with a major exhibition at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Keith Haring in 3D illuminates this rarely explored dimension of Haring’s work, and its role in his enduring legacy. The book’s generous format and engaging design, including more than 350 illustrations, invites readers to immerse themselves in the world Haring created. Featuring archival photographs of Haring at work, stunning reproductions of his art in three dimensions, and a trove of essays by respected curators, scholars, and collectors, Keith Haring in 3D celebrates in stunning detail the buoyant, brilliant work of one of the world’s most iconic artists.

Co-published in Association with the Victoria and Albert Museum, London This book is a timely and engaging introduction to the way that artists working in all media think about craft. Workmanship is key to today's visual arts, when high 'production values' are becoming increasingly commonplace. Yet craft's centrality to contemporary art has received little serious attention from critics and historians. Dispensing with cliched arguments that craft is art, Adamson persuasively makes a case for defining craft in a more nuanced fashion. The interesting thing about craft, he argues, is that it is perceived to be 'inferior' to art. The book consists of an overview of various aspects of this second-class identity - supplementarity, sensuality, skill, the pastoral, and the amateur. It also provides historical case studies analysing craft's role in a variety of disciplines, including architecture, design, contemporary art, and the crafts themselves. Thinking Through Craft will be essential reading for anyone interested in craft or the broader visual arts.

From the canonical texts of the Arts and Crafts Movement to the radical thinking of today's "DIY" movement, from theoretical writings on the position of craft in distinction to Art and Design to how-to texts from renowned practitioners, from feminist histories of textiles to descriptions of the innovation born of necessity in Soviet factories and African auto-repair shops...The Craft Reader presents the first comprehensive anthology of writings on modern craft. Covering the period from the Industrial Revolution to today, the Reader draws on craft practice and theory from America, Europe, Asia and Africa. The world of craft is considered in its full breadth -- from pottery and weaving, to couture and chocolate-making, to contemporary art, architecture and curation. The writings are themed into sections and all extracts are individually introduced, placing each in its historical, cultural and artistic context. Bringing together an astonishing range of both classic and contemporary texts, The Craft Reader will be invaluable to any student or practitioner of Craft and also to readers in Art and Design.AUTHORS INCLUDE: Theodor Adorno, Anni Albers, Amadou Hampate Ba, Charles Babbage, Roland Barthes, Andrea Branzi, Alison Britton, Rafael Cardoso, Johanna Drucker, Charles Eames, Salvatore Ferragamo, Kenneth Frampton, Alfred Gell, Walter Gropius, Tanya Harrod, Martin Heidegger, Patrick Heron, Bernard Leach, Esther Leslie, W. R. Lethaby, Lucy Lippard, Adolf Loos, Karl Marx, William Morris, Robert Morris, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Stefan Muthesius, George Nakashima, Octavio Paz, Grayson Perry, M. C. Richards, John Ruskin, Raphael Samuel, Ellen Gates Starr, Debbie Stoller, Alexis de Tocqueville, Lee Ufan, Frank Lloyd Wright

The Designs of the Year awards and exhibition, now in its tenth year, is an annual review of the most innovative and thought-provoking projects in contemporary design. Introduced by Deyan Sudjic and Glenn Adamson, this catalogue brings together all the shortlisted projects. It is a snapshot of the most exciting things happening in design right now.

The first monograph on the work of a groundbreaking artist in stained glass.From her start in the 1980s, Judith Schaechter (b. 1961) has stretched the medium of stained glass into an incisive art form for the twenty-first century, boldly paving her path in the diverse arena of contemporary art. With deep respect for history, a provocative rebelliousness, and a feminist sensibility, Schaechter has aptly been called a "post-punk stained-glass sorceress." This catalog accompanies "The Path to Paradise: Judith Schaechter's Stained-Glass Art", the first survey and major scholarly assessment of this groundbreaking artist's 37-year career. This catalog explores the range of critical registers Schaechter's work spans, illuminating and contextualizing the artist's unique contributions to the contemporary canon.Published in association with the Memorial Art Gallery, Rochester NY

This groundbreaking volume positions Liz Collins as a singular figure who not only synthesises fine art, craft and fashion and textile design, but also advocates fiercely for queer and feminist politics. Collins is a queer feminist artist known for her radical deployment of fibre, her activism around labour and gender politics, and her exploration of the borderlands between art, design and craft. Motherlode assembles her work from the late 1990s to the present day, introducing needlework, drawings and including documentation and large-scale sculpture. Contributors survey her life and career, address her unique relationship to craft and labour, and celebrate vital resonances in her work.

The catalogue Tunnel presents works from 2018 to 2023 by ceramicist Johannes Nagel (*1979). The majority of the objects were formed by the artist’s hands digging into sand to form cavities, negative spaces, which were then molded and revealed using liquid porcelain. By doing this, says co-author Esther Niebel, the artist imprints his own presence in to the objects. In addition to the extraordinary shapes thus created, expressive colours and the painting of the objects play a central role in Nagel’s work. Accompanied by essays, the excavated and cast pieces are presented in full-page photographs in a staccato portrayal of objects and ideas.Text in English and German.

Over the course of six decades, the American artist William Harper (b. 1944) has conjured a body of work unique in the realm of jewellery. Masterfully crafted in enamel and gold, his pieces explore multiple realms - from ancient mythology to personal iconography - and draw on influences such as African sculpture, medieval art, and modernist dance. Harper has nonetheless created an oeuvre that is instantly recognisable, branching into formats including paintings, ornamented casks, artist’s books, and more. Bizarre Beauty, the definitive study of Harper and his work, includes a full biography by co-editor Glenn Adamson, as well as thematic essays and primary texts. A visual feast, the book provides an intimate look at this brilliantly imaginative artist.

All the World’s a Stage grants an in-depth insight into the fascinating oeuvre of the Israeli artist Attai Chen (1979–2023). The series of jewellery presented in the book take a poetical look at the perpetual becoming and passing of life and of things, reflecting the complexity of these existential themes, at times with humour, other times with foreboding. In 2022 the artist himself described it thus: “I was always fascinated by the endless cyclical flow of things, be they in nature or in the man-made world; the movement of growth aimed at the fleeting moment of its realisation, the consummation of this moment, followed by decay and finally a new beginning.”Text in English and German.

An unprecedented look at the design archives of the iconic sportswear brand.In Autumn 2024 the Vitra Design Museum will present the first ever museum exhibition about Nike, the world’s most revered sport brand. The exhibition and this accompanying catalogue mark the milestones in Nike’s six decade history and explores its ascent into a global brand that holds a central role in popular culture. The focus of the exhibition is on Nike’s design practice – from the company’s beginnings in the 1960s and the design of its famous “swoosh” logo to iconic products such as Air Max Air Jordan and Vapor Fly, and current research devoted to future materials and sustainability. The main source for the exhibition is the Department of Nike Archives, which contains a unique collection of drawings, prototypes and other documentation. The exhibition marks the most comprehensive access ever given to this archive. Among the objects on show are rarities and one-offs from the company’s early days in the 1960s, original design drawings and prototypes of iconic sneaker models, historical documents and films, as well as the results of collaborations with creative figures such as Virgil Abloh and Marc Newson. Nike: Form Follows Motion traces Nike’s design process, which begins with the scientific analysis of the human body in motion and material research and culminates in the finished product and its branding. Along with Nike designers like Bill Bowerman, Diane Katz, Tinker Hatfield and Eric Avar, athletes – from the world’s greatest to the everyday – have played an important role in this design process.