MAD will be open on Mon, May 6.

In Conversation: Art in the Making

Fri, May 6, 2016

Art Workers: Radical Practice in the Vietnam War Era

Join authors Glenn Adamson and Julia Bryan-Wilson as they discuss their new book Art in the Making: Artists and their Materials from the Studio to Crowdsourcing.

Today, artists are able to create using multiple methods of production―from painting to digital technologies to crowdsourcing―some of which were unheard of just a few decades ago. Yet, even as our means of making art become more extraordinary and diverse, they are almost never addressed in their specificity. While critics and viewers tend to focus on the finished products we see in museums and galleries, authors Glenn Adamson and Julia Bryan-Wilson argue that the materials and processes behind the scenes used to make artworks are also vital to current considerations of authorship and to understanding the economic and social contexts from which art emerges.

Glenn Adamson is the former Nanette L. Laitman Director of the Museum of Arts and Design, and is the author of The Craft Reader, Thinking Through Craft and The Invention of Craft.

Julia Bryan-Wilson is an Associate Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art at the University of California, Berkeley. She is the author of Art Workers: Radical Practice in the Vietnam War Era and her writing has appeared in Art Bulletin, Art Journal, Artforum, Oxford Art Journal and other publications.

A book signing will follow the talk.

Please review our health and safety protocols before you arrive. MAD strongly recommends all visitors six months and older are vaccinated against Covid-19 and visitors ages two and up wear face coverings, even if vaccinated. Thank you for your cooperation.

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