A Companion to Contemporary Art in a Global Framework, First Edition. Edited by Jane Chin Davidson and Amelia Jones. © 2024 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Published 2024 by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. 11 CRAFT: Craft and the Making of “Global” Contemporary Art Pamela N. Corey The terms craft, decorative arts, and folk art designate constructs that were once (and arguably, in some instances, continue to be) downplayed in descriptions of artistic prac- tices due to the perception that such references could undermine the critical and mar- ket reception of a modernist or contemporary artist’s work. The discursive cleaving of “art” and “craft” that supported the ideological formation of artistic modernism is notoriously associated with, for example, the history of abstract expressionism and the writings of critic Clement Greenberg. His argument for modernist art’s philosophical interiority, transcendentalism, and medium specificity relied on a purging of all associa- tions with “low” culture, be it mass, popular, or vernacular (Greenberg 1982, 1986). In this formulation, craft’s association with the low rather than the high (a peculiar hierarchical distinction for many, if not the majority, of the world’s cultures) thus dis- tanced it from art’s forward evolution. These developments are well-known within prevailing histories of modern art, which has long situated Western Europe and North America as the theater of modernism, and the accomplishments of white male artists as universally exemplary. But I will outline what is necessarily a longer and broader span of history that brings craft into the discourse of contemporary art’s desire for globalism, while examining specificities of practice that are brought into focus through localized contexts and formal scrutiny. An abbreviated historical sketch will situate craft within transnational and transcultural histories, emphasizing the ways in which the art versus craft dichotomy has been constructed not only within the narrative of industrial modernization but, more crucially, as part of the taxonomies and circulations that sup- ported the project of empire, ideologically, and materially. This background will pro- vide context for considering craft as the hinge of an artwork but also as a risk for artists from regions like Southeast Asia, whose works become instrumental in the making of a “global” contemporary art. c11.indd 119 05-09-2023 16:43:32