Artist Book, 2024

Elhamra: Learning from craft

“Produced in the context of Bilal Yilmaz’s solo exhibition of the same name (September 2024), the book explores the artist’s work as a case-study to highlight the value of crafts for contemporary art practices - both as medium and as conceptual methodology. It brings together artworks, research material, and texts by artists and thinkers that explore craft as both a practice and a way of thinking.

Contributions by Theaster Gates (artist, University of Chicago), Julia Bryan-Wilson (art historian, Columbia University), Yasemin Özcan (artist), and Artan Sadiku (anarchist philosopher, School for Politics and Critique), offer a distinct take on craft’s social, political, and conceptual relevance today. Resisting the misconception of craft-in-opposition-to other fields like fine art, industry and technology, guest writers focus on craft-in-relation-to — a sort of craft-based relational aesthetics. Theaster Gates approaches craft as an entry point to socially engaged art, an understanding of making that is concerned with functionality and usefulness on a social scale. Julia Bryan-Wilson subverts the time-based understanding of craft as a practice of the past, going back to the initial meaning of the word ‘contemporary’ as a dynamic condition of co-existing interrelations. She introduces a kaleidoscopic understanding of craft that encompasses and is encompassed into other fields. Yasemin Özcan gives us an episodic narrative of the role of craft in her life, from her childhood to her university years and what has formed her as an artist. Through her experiences we are reminded of the parallel and conflicting approaches to craft that co-exist in society. Finally, Artan Sadiku proposes craft as a system of thought that can provide answers to many of the challenges of our time; a new craft-based imaginary.

A short manifesto in four parts introduces each chapter, focusing on different aspects of craft (craft as agency, contemporary value, knowledge, and political thinking) that can be read as a guide, a thread that binds texts, art works, sketches and research images together. Even though a book has a beginning, middle and end, in this case the reader is encouraged to flip through, go back and forth and wander around the content as they would wander around the exhibition.

As craft is versatile, multi-layered and multi-directional, so is this book. As a concept and practice, craft resists definitions, it is open-ended and therefore hard to contain. On the one hand, closed-ended definitions tend to limit our understanding of its potential. On the other hand, open-ended definitions reduce it to a vague, catch-all term devoid of true usefulness. Craft and its contemporary potential can then be better understood if seen as a methodology of making and thinking. In this context, Bilal Yilmaz’s “Elhamra: Learning from craft” can provide a case-study for this dual quality; for making and thinking through craft today.“

Excerpt from the editor’s text