I get the point. If intention alone made the ready-made art in the era of Marcel Duchamp and Andy Warhol, then it's hard to suddenly argue that prompting an AI isn't also a conceptual act. That said...
Good point, and you're right that Duchamp and Warhol were reacting against something specific, not removing craft wholesale. I'd give them that.
But I'm not sure the current moment is a genuine reassertion of craft. It looks more like a convenient one. The same institutions that spent decades rewarding concept over skill are now rediscovering the value of "embodied practice" — precisely when a machine can do the conceptual part without them.
If craft mattered to them in 2015, I'd call it a pendulum. In 2026, right when AI makes their position redundant? Can we still afford to be so charitable to institutions?
But I'm not sure the current moment is a genuine reassertion of craft. It looks more like a convenient one. The same institutions that spent decades rewarding concept over skill are now rediscovering the value of "embodied practice" — precisely when a machine can do the conceptual part without them.
If craft mattered to them in 2015, I'd call it a pendulum. In 2026, right when AI makes their position redundant? Can we still afford to be so charitable to institutions?
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