Stanford University
Press Release: Exhibition

Handle with Care

a collage of objects related to the exhibition handle with care

IMAGE COMPOSITE: (Clockwise from top left): Image 1: Artist unknown (Cyprus), fragment of water jug (hydria), 600 BCE–475 BCE. Terra-cotta. Cantor Arts Center, Stanford University, Stanford Family Collections. Image 2: Artist unknown, eyeglasses (lorgnette). Europe or North America. Tortoise. Cantor Arts Center, Stanford University, Stanford Family Collections. Image 3: Artist unknown, Vessel in the Form of a Coiled Serpent, 300 BCE-100. Ceramic. Cantor Arts Center, Stanford University, Gift of the Christensen Fund Collection. Image 4: Artist unknown, mirror, 19th century. Jade (white nephrite) with gilt metal frame. Cantor Arts Center, Stanford University, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Charles D. Field. Image 5: Salviati & Co., Fish Ewer, 1890–1913. Blown glass. Cantor Arts Center, Stanford University, Gift of Erede Dr. A. Salviati & Co. Image 6: Artist unknown, Prestige Spoon with Anthropomorphic Handle, 20th century. Wood. Cantor Arts Center, Stanford University, Anonymous Gift. Image 7: Artist unknown, vessel and lid, c. 1550 BCE–1070 BCE. Alabaster. Cantor Arts Center, Stanford University, Stanford Family Collections.

Stanford, CA
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Handle with Care
March 19–September 14, 2025

Engaging with the Cantor’s collection in new, imaginative ways, the exhibition examines the handle as a crucial design element through which we connect with the world
 

The Cantor Arts Center is pleased to present Handle with Care, an imaginative exhibition that engages the encyclopedic breadth of the Cantor’s collection to highlight a fundamental yet overlooked aspect of design: the handle. Curated by Patrick R. Crowley, Associate Curator of European Art, and on view from March 19 to September 14, 2025, this single-gallery exhibition explores how handles invite us into the world of objects—their look and feel, their orientation, their weight.

Comprising nearly forty objects, this unusual exhibition shuttles between the universal and the particular, cutting across traditional divisions of geography, chronology, and object type. Like a picture frame, the handle is both part of and separate from the work of art. However trivial it might seem at first glance, the handle plays a key role as a mediating connection between the inanimate world of objects or the built environment and our bodies of flesh and blood. Handles enhance our abilities and accommodate our disabilities. With them, we leverage the weight of our bodies against the weight of the world.

“We’re delighted to present this stimulating exhibition that offers a fascinating cross-section of the Cantor’s eclectic collection, presenting objects from antiquity to the early 20th century, including Greek drinking cups, a Mughal shield, a Chinese hand mirror, and a miniature cane–topped with a horse leg handle–given to a two-year-old Leland Stanford Jr. Handle with Care is the kind of exhibition that perfectly suits the university art museum’s role as a catalyst for academic inquiry, bringing together diverse disciplines to spark meaningful conversations across the fields of art, design, archaeology, engineering, disability studies, and beyond,” comments Veronica Roberts, John and Jill Freidenrich Director of the Cantor Arts Center.

Different sections of the exhibition explore how the handle orients us to our surroundings through embodied sensations of position, movement, and force; how the relationship between a handle and a spout in different types of vessels forms a system like a circuit that channels the flow of electricity; and how broken, miniaturized, or otherwise unusable handles compel us to consider their objecthood anew.

The exhibition is complemented by a touch table where visitors can engage and manipulate a selection of objects. Through direct interactions, audiences can experience the tactile qualities of unusual handles firsthand, grasping a further understanding of their role in shaping our physical and psychological engagement with the material world.

“Handles are good to think with,” adds Crowley. “On one hand, the handle raises deep philosophical questions about the aesthetic autonomy of the work of art. On the other, it’s a supremely functional design element that cuts to the core of what it means to be human. As museum professionals, we have to unlearn our basic instinct to grasp an object by its handles since these projecting elements are the weakest points that can easily break. My hope is that this exhibition has something for everyone, that it hits the sweet spot between theory and practice.”

 

EXHIBITION CREDITS
Handle with Care is organized by the Cantor Arts Center and curated by Patrick R. Crowley, Associate Curator of European Art. We gratefully acknowledge sustained support for Handle with Care provided by The Halperin Exhibitions Fund.