Arts and Crafts is Cactus

In this comprehensive inventory catalog, the Museum Angewandte Kunst in Frankfurt reflects for the first time on its collection from 1945 to the present.

The title of the exhibition of the same name, Arts and Crafts is Cactus, alludes to the diffuse image and the multifaceted reception that arts and crafts as a discipline has received in recent decades. To this day, its positioning in the history of art is unclear, alternating between arts and crafts, design, and art.

In their essays, the nine authors take diverse approaches to the broad terrain of arts and crafts: from the relationship between East Asia and Western ceramics, via the handicrafts of the Romantic period, to reflections on contemporary jewellry, glass, and silverwork.

The diversity of manifestations shown in the scale reproductions of works is astounding: artistic, individual, authentic, eye-catching, and decorative. Like the cactus, arts and crafts stands out with its infinite wealth of forms, all of which can be rediscovered and marvelled at in this catalog.

With contributions by Nora von Achenbach, Rike Felka, Christiane Holm, Eva Linhart, Ellen Maurer Zilioli, Sabine Runde, Christina Schroeter-Herrel, Beatrijs Sterk, Christianne Weber-Stöber, and Matthias Wagner K.