From the opening image of a neon work by Alica Eggert to the lead paragraph, glass art dominates the Washington Post's review of "This Present Moment: Crafting a Better World" at the Renwick Gallery at the Smithsonian Museum of American Art in Washington, D.C. Art critic Kriston Capps positions the exhibition, organized by the Renwick's Lloyd Herman Curator of Craft Mary Savig, in the context of the current political moment with court rulings restricting the rights to abortion. The review cites Karen Lamonte's 2000 work Vestige (Pleated Dress) as "prophetic" for the absence of the women who inhabited the mold used to cast the glass, a metaphor in the reviewer's mind for the "agency of people who could become pregnant."
Capps holds up this exhibition as proof that craft media has transcended its focus on technical mastery and demonstrates "how far craft as a movement has pushed to embrace contemporary concepts about identity and storytelling." Another image features the provocative work Metabolizing the Border, a wearable sculpture made of blown glass and artifacts of the U.S.-Mexico border fence by Tanya Aguiñiga
Capps deems the exhibition as further evidence of art in craft materials taking its place among other media as a full-fledged forum for current trends in fine art: "No longer confined to traditional formats or techniques, this post-craft era has opened the Renwick’s doors to contemporary art, with works spanning installation, conceptual and even performance art," Capps writes.