ABSTRACT
Assessing the relationship between contemporary art and the home brings together two histories: that of the domestic in art practice and that of art in home-making. As for the former, it is important to acknowledge that much of the subject matter of the fine arts through their history has been and remains domestic. The processes of product development and dissemination elaborated by the design industries through the modern and postmodern phases have played an unintended part in redefining the homemaker as a cultural creator. Relations between the domains of home-making and the design industries may vary considerably: historically, those providing making services once largely followed ‘traditional’ patterns defined by modes of living. In domestic space, the formal characteristics of our paradigms are made homologous with dispositions of modes of living and particular ways of actualizing possibilities for producing elements of domestic material culture.
