40:40 forty objects for forty years
Spirit Level by Dorothy Hogg
The Crafts Council celebrates 40 years of the Crafts Council Collection with a major online exhibition ‘40:40 – forty objects for forty years’.
www.4040.org.uk features forty objects from the Crafts Council Collection have been selected by makers, writers and curators. The objects are presented with a personal response from their selector alongside a range of archive material including exhibition catalogue texts, films, audio clips, sketches, press articles, loan correspondence and installation instructions.
The pieces selected are by some of the most important makers of contemporary craft from the last 40 years, including Fred Baier’s ‘Star Wars chair’ (1978), a small yellow bowl by legendary potter Lucie Rie (1983), pioneering jewellery by David Watkins (1983), Caroline Broadhead’s ‘Wobbly Dress’ (1990), Grayson Perry’s anarchic ‘Mad Kid’s Bedroom Wall Pot’ (1996), Tord Boontje’s ‘Wednesday Light’ (2001), and ‘Arcady’ (2007) by Edmund de Waal.
Selectors include graphic designer Malcolm Garrett, Shane Walter, founder of onedotzero, Vicky Richardson, Director of Architecture, Design and Fashion at the British Council, Glenn Adamson, Deputy Head of Research at the V&A and a number of makers including Lin Cheung, Steve Dixon and Michael Marriott.
The Inspired! section of the exhibition presents new commissions by six ‘creative voices’ who have all selected objects from the exhibition and responsed to them, offering fresh insights into the Collection. The commissions include a sound piece by Scanner, a poem by John Agard, a low-fi film by craft collective Prick your Finger and a series of illustrated ‘flash fictions’ by It’s Nice That.
40:40 – forty objects for forty years is supported by the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation. It encourages new ways of engaging with work from the Crafts Council Collection and pilots a new approach to dynamic online archiving.
Quotes
Rosy Greenlees, Executive Director, Crafts Council:
“The Crafts Council Collection has over 1,400 objects of exemplary contemporary craft and 40:40 is an excellent way to open up that extensive collection in an interesting and relevant way. It is important to make this national collection accessible to people physically which we do by loaning works to regional museums and galleries, bit also digitally.”
Ends
For more press information please contact Jill Read on 020 7806 2549 or media@craftscouncil.org.uk. Follow @CraftsCouncilUK on Twitter and Facebook
Notes to editors
• ico Design created the 40:40 website www.icodesign.com
• The Crafts Council Collection is one of the most significant in the UK with over 1400 contemporary craft objects from the last 40 years.
