Crafting Exhibitions : Documents on Contemporary Crafts 3

The profession of exhibition making and curatorial practices has over the course of the last twenty years undergone a seminal change, something which in turn has challenged the notion of what an exhibition can be, not least in terms of communication and design. Large scale group exhibitions, like documenta in Kassel, seem to have involved discussions on exhibition making and curatorial models at the heart of their organisational body. Another common aspect of these large-scale events is that they employ new venues for showing and presenting works, be it museums that normally don't show contemporary art or craft, abandoned factories or various public spaces. Craft 2014, the annual group exhibition of the Norwegian Association for Arts and Crafts, created much lively debate concerning spatial design, as the walls and floor in the exhibition spaces were covered in tags by local graffiti artists. Was the perception of the individual works impaired due to the "smeared" exhibition walls, or has it not only elevated the exhibition but also made it more contemporary and more fun?