A Study on the Plastic Forms in Modern Craft Object Arts

Abstract

The object in modern craft arts refers to the crafts as a form of arts. The experimental sculptural arts of the early 20th century derived from the object in modern arts. In the 1960s anti-functional crafts began to be accommodated into the object. In the 1980s the object flourished as a form of craft arts with emphasis on the values of plastic expressions. The object is a form of plastic arts which symbolizes anti-tradition and anti-function. The object developed from the recognition that true artistic expression can be achieved through an unrestricted interpretation of aesthetic concepts with the development of consumer mass culture and industrialization. This recognition negated the traditional view that the essence of artistic expression lies in the relation of the descriptive method in the past. It has been argued that crafts do not have artistic values any more when they lost its functional usefulness. Nonetheless, the crafts arts have established themselves as a new plastic form of arts with never-ending experimental possibilities because of its transformative qualities by means of its medium. In the process of experiments and researches the meaning of anti-function has been redefined as a conditional method for a new artistic method, not as a necessary condition for the object in craft arts. In the 1980s the process of incorporating the plasticity of the object into the traditional and industrial craft arts began to emerge. The half-century experimental works of the object in modern craft arts have rediscovered serious themes for the fundamental questioning of the nature of crafts materials such as fabrics, ceramics, metal, glass, wood. Its rediscovery contributed to the widening of the possibilities of expressions of craft arts. The utility of the object in modern craft arts can be measured by how successful it is in seriously reconsidering and reestablishing the traditional aesthetic concept of craft arts.