"History in the Making: Renwick Craft Invitational 2011" Opens at the Renwick Gallery March 25

“History in the Making: Renwick Craft Invitational 2011” opens March 25 at the Renwick

Gallery, the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s branch museum for craft and decorative arts, and

closes July 31. The exhibition features 70 works by ceramic artist Cliff Lee, furniture maker Matthias

Pliessnig, glass artist Judith Schaechter and silversmith Ubaldo Vitali. Each artist is a master of his or

her medium and creates artworks that combine historical techniques with contemporary forms.

        The artists were chosen by Nicholas R. Bell, curator at the museum’s Renwick Gallery;

Ulysses Dietz, senior curator and curator of decorative arts at The Newark Museum; and Andrew

Wagner, editor-in-chief of ReadyMade magazine. Bell is the curator of the exhibition. It is the fifth in

the museum’s biennial series, intended to celebrate artists deserving of wider national recognition.

        “‘History in the Making’ captures the thrilling way crafts evoke the ‘remembrance of things

past,’” said Elizabeth Broun, The Margaret and Terry Stent Director of the Smithsonian American Art

Museum. “These four artists have the traditions of their media embedded deeply in their minds and

hands, so their work feels at once profoundly rooted and entirely fresh.”

        “Vitali, Lee, Schaechter and Pliessnig use varied histories of craftsmanship and creative

expression as points of departure in the pursuit of original art,” said Bell. “Drawing from diverse

cultural histories and experiences, these artists explore the depth of the creative wellspring for

contemporary craft in the United States. The objects in the exhibition reveal how the most dedicated

and skilled individuals produce works of uncommon splendor.”

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