Crafts
Constructivism in Art and Design (Crafts Council Gallery, till 3 April)
Flagship adrift
Tanya Harrod
In the past the Crafts Council has staged some outstanding exhibitions at Waterloo Place. One has only to think of the exhilarating The Maker's Eye of 1981 or Art in Production: Soviet Textiles, Fashion and Ceramics of 1984 or The Omega Works/zip 1913-19 of the same year, not to mention numerous smaller, well conceived exhibitions. But times have changed and priorities appear to have shifted. It is plain that the current leadership desperately underrates the importance of major exhibi- tions. A large part of the Crafts Council budget is now being given over to the Regional Arts Associations — their block grant has increased by nearly 60 per cent in the last three years. I believe that the current director's slogan is 'A craft object in every home', and to this end resources are being concentrated on educational projects and drives to market and retail the crafts.
All this would be fine if there were visible strengths at the centre. But with the relatively tiny Office of Arts and Libraries grant which does not pretend to keep pace either with inflation or with salary in- creases it is not possible to do everything well. As a result the exhibition section seems to have lost out, whilst the publica- tions section, once with a staff of three and responsible for some fine catalogues and monographs on leading makers, to all intents and purposes no longer exists. Even the future of the excellent Craft magazine looks uncertain.
It really would be a disaster if the exhibition section were allowed to decline and even fade away because of an ill- thought-out drive to regionalise and popularise. The Waterloo Place gallery is the Crafts Council's flagship and the place in which to educate not only a large public but also the sponsors who are desperately needed if an ambitious exhibitions prog- ramme is to continue. In the world of fine art British painting and sculpture often seems undervalued in favour of interna- tional styles and movements. In the craft world the reverse seems true. It surely should be part of the exhibition section's brief to present regular historical and contemporary shows from abroad instead of the same names and all too recognisable objects.
It would be unfair to compare the exhibitions staged by the Hayward last year with those put on by the Crafts Council. Better funding, more space and sponsorship resulted in major scholarly shows like those of Rodin, Le Corbusier and Diego Rivera. In contrast, last year's exhibitions at Waterloo Place included nothing from abroad and no exhibition which could seriously be described as scholarly. The final show at Waterloo Place last year, The New Spirit in Craft and Design, was on far too long because the money ran out for further shows, and then — shame of shames — the gallery was turned into an unconvincing kind of shop over Christmas, thus competing with other outlets in London funded by the Crafts Council.
But a new year dawns and I had received good advance publicity for Constructivism in Art and Design — a selection from the collection at the University of East Anglia. But sadly this exhibition — though full of objects of extraordinary interest and beau- ty — is clearly another example of the dedicated exhibition officers at the Crafts Council having to get by on inadequate funds. The collection is made up of pieces which go beyond a strict definition - of constructivism to include purism, systems art and minimalism. It could have formed the basis for a more coherent show if it had been decided to concentrate on some aspect of the collection and perhaps bor- row from elsewhere. As it was, we moved from Russia around 1917 to De Stijl to Bauhaus to purism to aspects of construe- tivism in Britain from the 1930s to the present day. In order to educate, even to popularise, this exhibition needed much more detailed explanatory material and perhaps a few extra pieces. For instance, the loan of a work or works by Naum Gabo, who features in so many chapters of the constructivist story — in revolutionary Russia, at the Dessau Bauhaus, in Britain during the war and finally in the States — would have acted as a unifying presence. (Luckily the Museum of Modern Art in Oxford's excellent Naum Gabo: the con- structive idea is still on — till 7 February.) A vital characteristic of constructivist art — certainly as it originated in Russia — was a purity of intention as well as of line and form. The artists who followed the constructivist ideal were dedicated to creating an ordered environment for the modern world. Even Naum Gabo's reful- gent small sculptures of perspex and nylon thread are clearly intended as a public art. Architecture and functional objects — furniture and clothing — were to be cheaply produced for the betterment of mankind. In this spirit El Lissitsky and Tatlin designed chairs, Gabo styled cars and Gropius and Marcel Breuer designed furniture for Jack Pritchard's firm Isokon.
The contemporary furniture-makers showing in the Crafts Council second gallery in an exhibition entitled Chairs by Contemporary Craftsmen employ the aes- thetics but not the intentions of construe- tivism. For instance Erik de Graaf s chairs make one instantly think of the Rietweld chair shown in the main gallery. Floris van der Broecke's steel and wood laminate chair is close to a work by El Lissitsky in the East Anglia collection — bold design, simply made, cheap materials. But the intention is very different. Ironically, at a time of economic recession the idea of art for the masses, cheaply produced, scarcely exists. This sort of paradox could have been made more of at Waterloo Place. But currently the Crafts Council seems in the grip of a malaise. Let us hope that present policies can be modified and that once again we will see triumphant exhibitions and well researched catalogues on major themes in the applied arts and, not least, an atmosphere of excitement and debate at Waterloo Place.
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