CategoriesStyles and Movements
Contemporary DIY
Contemporary art that prizes handmade, self-built and self-published work, using amateur skills and cheap materials against mass production.
No works indexed yet · 10 related artists
No open-access works for Contemporary DIY are in the index yet. They will appear here as more collections are indexed.
About
Do-it-yourself culture reached art by several routes: the self-sufficiency ideals of the 1960s counterculture and the Whole Earth Catalog, first issued in 1968, then punk's photocopied zines, self-released records and hand-altered clothes in the late 1970s. Artists took from both a belief that anyone can make things, and that making them by hand is a form of independence.
Today the attitude takes many forms. Joe Scanlan has published instructions for turning flat-pack bookcases into a coffin, among other self-made objects. Daniel Dewar and Grégory Gicquel teach themselves crafts such as woodcarving, stoneware and weaving, and use them to make large sculptures and furniture. Ben Venom sews quilts from heavy metal and biker T-shirts. Raúl de Nieves covers sculptures and costumes in thousands of plastic beads, and Sarah Sze builds sprawling installations from household odds and ends. Look for visible handwork, humble materials and signs of learning on the job.
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