Abraham Thomas – Dissolving Boundaries: Craft in an Expansive Field
Abraham Thomas – Dissolving Boundaries: Craft in an Expansive Field 2018 CraftNOW Symposium Keynote Lecture The 2017 CraftNOW (craftnowphila.org/about) "Fluid Boundaries" (craftnowphila.org/symposium) daylong symposium culminated with this keynote lecture by Abraham Thomas, The Fleur and Charles Bresler Curator-in-Charge of the Renwick Gallery (americanart.si.edu/visit/renwick) in Washington DC, which forms part of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and is home to the Smithsonian Institution’s internationally renowned collection of modern and contemporary craft. His research interests are focused on the 19th century to the present day, and he has published and lectured extensively on architecture, fashion, graphic design, film, photography and decorative arts. He has curated numerous exhibitions on architecture and design, including “Heatherwick Studio: Designing the Extraordinary” (2012), “1:1 – Architects Build Small Spaces” (2010), the V&A’s international touring exhibition, “Owen Jones: Islamic Design, Discovery and Vision” (2009-2011), “Paper Movies: Graphic Design and Photography at Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue, 1934 to 1963” (2007), and the forthcoming exhibition for the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, “High-Tech: Design in a Post-industrial Age” (2018). He is currently working on the 2018 Renwick Invitational, the Smithsonian’s biannual showcase for emerging American craft artists, and he is continuing to develop a body of research relating to the design of Stanley Kubrick’s landmark film, ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’, in close collaboration with the Kubrick Archives housed at University of the Arts London.
