Our goal with The Craft is to put spotlight on creators from a variety of industries. By doing so we hope to energize architects, creatives and designers, inviting them to find inspiration from unexpected spaces. Our next guest is Glenn Adamson.
—
A foremost proponent of craft-led contemporary art, architecture and design, the noted curator, writer and historian closes out a prolific year with the curation of major collectible design fair Design Miami.
Arcol spoke to noted curator, writer, and historian Glenn Adamson about the inherent nature of collaboration within craft-led avant garde design and curation; lessons that can inform how architects and engineers work with different stakeholders.
“As the curatorial director for this year’s Design Miami.—the 20th edition here in its hometown—I gave a lot of consideration to what a commercial fair can bring to the field,” he said ahead of the leading collectible design event—held this year from 3 to 8 December. “Ultimately I think it comes down to elevation: this is a concentrated platform for the international design avant garde, which provides unparalleled visibility to people and their projects. The choice to be led by the “Blue Sky Thinking” curatorial theme felt only natural. Design is inherently a speculative venture, and also a collective one, a shared framework of reference at a time of global interconnection.”
Design Miami
What’s “Blue Sky Thinking” and what does it have to do with craft and collaboration?
The term “Blue Sky Thinking” is widely defined as the exercise of brainstorming without constraint to imagine out-of-the-box results. Many of this year's exhibitors, noted talents operating in this rarified sector of the industry—creating one-off art-like furnishings and accessories—emphatically adhere to this ethos. Noted designers like Mathieu Lehanneur—the force behind the Olympic Paris Torch 2024—often work closely with master craftspeople specialized in various age-old techniques to arrive at their format-defying concepts; challenging them to push beyond conventional applications and in doing so, ensure these practices don’t go extinct. Forging close interpersonal bonds between the designer and maker so that they can collaboratively ideate without hesitation or disdain from one another is essential.
What’s Glenn’s take on the industry as it stands?
“Craft is inherently linked to avant garde design,” Adamson notes. “There’s a trajectory that runs throughout the history of decorative arts that centers on artisan knowledge and material intelligence. Today, one line of inquiry driving the market is material research, not just coming up with new variants but also new ways to work with existing ones.” The other is spirituality and self-actualization through unique objects.” For him, this domain allows creatives to collectively imagine new ideas and forms without the normal commercial pressures.
What’s his thinking on craft?
Throughout his countless books, articles, exhibitions, and moderated discussions, Adamson has long espoused this deeply experimental and expressive mindset. For him, craft is far more than a set of prescriptive leisurely activities one can do at home—candle painting, beading, macrame, etc.—and represents a much broader operational framework; an ethos of production and even living life, how we consume. His 2018 novel Fewer Better Things outlines how important it is to surround oneself with the objects that carry sentimental value rather than the mass produced items we accumulate according to especially quick trend cycles. As an alternative to industrially produced furnishings and accessories, craft is a methodology in which these creations can be far more personalized and idiosyncratic; a tailor-made approach rather than a one-size fits all mentality.
How did Glenn come to that philosophy?
Adamson has cultivated this philosophy through extensive, contemporaneously relevant, historical research and prominent roles at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, Museum of Art and Design in New York. Seminal shows like the Postmodernism: Style and Subversion 1970 - 1990 exhibit—mounted at the former from September 2011 to January 2012–not only reformulated the historiography of this era but also solidified Adamson’s position and approach; one that is equal parts intellectual and accessible. It is that mix of past and present that made him an ideal candidate for this year’s Design Miami. curatorial role, where the ambition is to look back to look forward. Throughout the past two decades, he’s guest curated numerous thought-provoking exhibitions at major galleries and prestigious institutions around the world; providing a substantive footing for otherwise purely commercial presentations.
Imagery from Design Miami
What has he developed this year?
Besides his position as Design Miami. curatorial director, 2024 has been a particularly prolific year. Of note was his curation of the first ever Design Doha biennial in February, the Nike: Form Follows Motion retrospective presented at the Vitra Design Museum outside of Basel, Switzerland this fall through next spring and the release of his latest title A Century of Tomorrows released in December. According to him, “the book tells the story of futurology in the 20th century: past attempts to predict the future which has shaped the present.”
How does Glenn collaborate?
Regardless of the project—if it's a small or large undertaking—collaboration is also a vital part of ‘his’ craft. Often, he taps former collaborators or those he’s written about and exhibited to participate in new undertakings as a means of anchoring his vision; setting the stage for uncovering and presenting the work of underrepresented talents or those from overlooked regions of the world. Adamson helped commission noted Dutch designer and 3D-printing maverick Joris Laarman to develop a permanent public installation unveiled during Design Doha. He was part of a show Adamson curated at New York gallery Friedman Benda a few years ago.
What’s his human-centric approach?
In general, Adamson talks about concepts and themes through the lens of individuals, their practice and what makes them so distinct but also how their work or ideas fit into the larger zeitgeist of the period or topic in question. In true academic fashion, rarely does he need to claim dominance or full authorship of such a project, except of course if it is his own book. Due is always given where due.
What was the concept behind the Nike exhibition?
This down-to-earth and human centric approach ensures that the showcases are as qualitatively accurate and meaningful as possible. For the Nike exhibition, he worked in tandem with the legendary company’s archivists and even a few of the leads on its design team.
Nike Exhibition
Applying his approach to an unexpected topic—the five-decade history of a major sports apparel brand—proved to be very fruitful. With a craft-led perspective, Adamson and his collaborators focused on the evolution of Nike’s logo and how various products transformed according to the changing needs and behavior of the user; not to mention its pop-culture following.
How did he help envision the first edition of Design Doha?
A massive endeavor, the first edition of Design Doha, held throughout the city’s newly constructed design district, shed fresh light on discipline as a stratified domain—encompassing a wide range of applications—throughout the MENA region (Middle East and North Africa). Adamson, however did not go it alone and relied heavily on other culturemakers with local expertise to bring together the more culturally and less commercially-focused festival.
Design Doha | Preview Video
What collaborators were involved?
“I was, in many respects, the curator of curators,” he describes. “Rana Beiruti, who is the founding director of Amman Design Week in her native Jordan, mounted the museum-quality survey show Arab Design Now and knows the region better than anyone. Gwen Farrelly headed up the Morocco Exchange exhibit and Péter Nagy co-curated the Colors of the City showcase of the city and is an expert in the architectural history of the city.”
Through the inherent necessity for collaboration that craft-led art, architecture, design, and even exhibition curation engenders, experimentation flourishes and new paradigm shifting solutions emerge.
Thank you for joining us Glenn!