Pontus Lindvall

Sign Think Tank, 2008
mixed media (wood, ceramic, aluminium)

                                                                                 Helsingoer, August 25, 2008
Dear Pontus Lindvall,

As a member of the Think Tank. A European Initiative for the Applied Arts I would like to commission a work from you. The work will be a part of our latest exhibition SKILL, which will be on display in different European venues the next year.

We chose SKILL as our theme for 2008 for several reasons. Among them is the fact that skill is a since long hackneyed aspect of craft. It is almost impossible to talk about craft without implying handicraft skills as an unquestionable agent. This tends to make all discussion about it a bit predictable, lacking any radically new points of departure.

On the other hand we all agree that craft is a practice in constant change, which means that the role of skill is also changing. For this reason we need to develop new understandings of the relationship between craft (understood as a cultural practice), and skill (as a set of qualifications to perform this practice).

I have chosen you to represent my viewpoint on skill because I think you represent a craft practice that radically breaches with inherent ideas on skill. You’re not skilled in a traditional handicraft way, but to me, you represent a core aspect of craft by the way you communicate via objects that perform some kind of function.

Therefore, for this project I have decided to ask you: What is your skill? In short, I am commissioning an object that materializes your thoughts. In choosing you, and in commissioning this precise response, the object will also materialize my thoughts on craft, which means, we will end up with an object that comes into existense as a mutual claim on skill.

So, please tell me: What is your skill?

Kind regards,

Louise Mazanti

Pontus Lindvall (b. 1969) is a ceramic artist based in Stockholm.

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2009

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