RAW: Craft, Commodity, and Capitalism

Craft Contemporary presents “RAW: Craft, Commodity, and Capitalism,” a thematic exhibition featuring nine contemporary artists who work with commodities as their materials to construct works that reflect upon the history of colonialism, slavery, and globalization. The artists featured are: Charmaine Bee, Atul Bhalla, Sonya Clark, Raksha Parekh, Jovencio de la Paz, Ignacio Perez Meruane, Amor Muñoz, Juana Valdes, and Ken + Julia Yonetani.

The exhibition concept was inspired by an interview with Sven Beckert, author of Empire of Cotton: A Global History (2014). In examining the rise and fall of the European-dominated cotton empire, Beckert writes, “Because of the centrality of cotton, its story is also the story of the making and remaking of global capitalism and with it of the modern world.” Indeed, goods such as cotton, sugar, salt, tea, etc. became a driving force behind the industrialization and expansion of Western civilization, weaving farflung populations, geographies, and market systems inextricably together to shape contemporary understandings of economics, politics, and nationhood. The exhibition traces how this operating framework of capitalism – extracting labor and natural resources from colonized regions – has rippled across time.

Image: Ken + Julia Yonetani, Grape chandelier, 2011. Murray River salt and metal, 90.5 x 55.1 inches. Courtesy of Ken + Julia Yonetani and Mizuma Gallery, Singapore. Photo: Catherine Brossais.