Ruth Asawa and the Crochet Problem - July 2014

On a recent visit to the de Young Museum, we viewed Lines on the Horizon, a stunning collection of Navajo weavings, and then headed to the observation tower for a view of San Francisco. The entry area at the base of the tower was filled with the ethereal work of Ruth Asawa. The interplay of light and shadow on these pieces was magical, and the unexpected way we experienced the works made them more so.

I went to the museum's website to find out what they had to say about Asawa and encountered the curious rhetoric of the fine art world when it comes to any discussion of craft technique. They call Asawa a "modernist sculptor of abstract forms" and her pieces are referred to as "wire constructions" and "wire sculptures." Come on, spit it out, these pieces are crocheted. Her own website calls these works crocheted wire sculpture. What's wrong with that description? The issue is, ahem, crochet is a "craft" technique, and therefore not to be mentioned in a fine art context. Here is a quote from the de Young press release on her 2006-7 retrospective, in which they explain the problem and yet today continue to be a part of it with their reluctance to use the "c-word"  to decribe a technique that Asawa herself embraced. 

...today considered a San Francisco treasure, Asawa has been under-represented by most art history surveys of 20th-century sculpture. "Because her work uses nontraditional materials and a manual method that appears related to knitting, weaving and craft, it is often overlooked in discussions of modernist sculpture," says Dr. Cornell, Director of Contemporary Art Projects and Curator of American Art.