The exhibition, The Tool at Hand asked what would it be like to create a work of art using only one tool?
In the Spring of 2011 the Chipstone Foundation and the Milwaukee Art Museum invited sixteen established artists from Britain and America to participate in an unusual experiment. Each artist was asked to lay aside his or her standard tool kit and craft a work of art with one tool alone. The challenge presented to the artists sounds simple: create a work of art with one tool. The material and tool were left open-ended with the purpose of encouraging creativity within the one-tool constraint. The Tool at Hand brings together these artworks, the tools that crafted them and short, explanatory videos produced by each artist. This was the artists’ invitation video, which the filmmaker, Nicola Probert, also created using only one tool.
Now all the artworks are on line, archived alongside essays and short films made by the artists who used tools ranging from a hammer, to a knitting machine, data, and a macbook pro.