Crafts have now infiltrated the mainstream museum world, sparked by the guerrilla tactics of performance. One of summer’s must-see exhibitions in this direction is “Hand+Made: The Performative Impulse in Art and Craft,” a topical view at Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, curated by Valerie Cassel Oliver. The lively, even raucous group show encompasses insouciant attitudes and avant-garde approaches, from Cat Chow’s dollar-bill ball gown (submit an anonymous offering, and your bill will be woven into the completed frock formed from $1,000 worth of donated ones) to Lauren Kalman’s provocative digital print of a gilded tongue. We yearn to play dress up as one of Saya Woolfalk’s flower people, then wear this blooming garb to November’s Orange Show Gala. Through July 25; for a schedule of the intriguing public interventions citywide that accompany “Hand+Made,” visit camh.org/calendar.
Image: Saya Woolfalk’s No Place (pre)Constructed: Self and Landscape, 2008/10, at CAMH. Photo courtesy the artist, © Rick Gardner Photography