Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Dargerism
The influence of Outsider/fringe/untaught artists (etc etc) on Contemporary art is a powerful one. For my part, I have still never recovered (and don't particularly wish to!) from my first encounter. The show Outsider Art, at the Hayward Gallery on the South Bank in 1979 curated by, I think, Roger Cardinal, BLEW ME AWAY. But I have struggled somewhat with how one absorbs such an influence as one who has passes through the stomach of the art school system and cannot, in all honesty, claim Outsider status. Doesn't really matter. As long as the art hits one on a gut level, viscerally, you can be richpoormentallystable ornot. The following exhibition, which addresses this issue, is at the American Folk Art Museum from April 15th to September 21st, 2008. The writing below copied without permission but due credit is given.
Brooke Davis Anderson, curator
The American Folk Art Museum is home to the single largest repository of works by one of the most significant artists of the twentieth century, Henry Darger (1892 - 1973), who created nearly three hundred watercolor and collage paintings to illustrate his epic masterpiece, The Story of the Vivian Girls, in what is Known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco-Angelinnian War Storm, Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion, which encompasses more than fifteen thousand pages.
There is a long history of academically trained artists drawing inspiration from self-taught artists and thus freeing themselves to think in unexpected ways and on their own idiosyncratic terms, almost in defiance of what they were taught. "Dargerism: Contemporary Artists and Henry Darger" examines the influence of Darger's remarkable and cohesive oeuvre on eleven such artists, who are responding not only to the aesthetic beauty of Darger's mythic work -- with its tales of good versus evil, its epic scope and complexity, and even its transgressive undertone -- but to his unblinking work ethic and all-consuming devotion to artmaking. This exhibition demonstrates Darger's pervasive influence on the contemporary art discourse and how an examination of the work of self-taught artists is essential for a full understanding of art history. By leaning into the boundaries of the Western canon, "Dargerism" illustrates how one self-taught master has spawned a new movement, a wholly new "ism."
"Dargerism: Contemporary Artists and Henry Darger" is made possible by support from the Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation and Agnes Gund.
Museum exhibitions are supported in part by the Leir Charitable Foundations in memory of Henry J. & Erna D. Leir, the Gerard C. Wertkin Exhibition Fund, and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.
New York Times review (4/18)
TONY on Grayson Perry Talk (4/17)
New York Sun review (4/17)
New York Sun preview (4/11)
Brooke Davis Anderson, curator
The American Folk Art Museum is home to the single largest repository of works by one of the most significant artists of the twentieth century, Henry Darger (1892 - 1973), who created nearly three hundred watercolor and collage paintings to illustrate his epic masterpiece, The Story of the Vivian Girls, in what is Known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco-Angelinnian War Storm, Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion, which encompasses more than fifteen thousand pages.
There is a long history of academically trained artists drawing inspiration from self-taught artists and thus freeing themselves to think in unexpected ways and on their own idiosyncratic terms, almost in defiance of what they were taught. "Dargerism: Contemporary Artists and Henry Darger" examines the influence of Darger's remarkable and cohesive oeuvre on eleven such artists, who are responding not only to the aesthetic beauty of Darger's mythic work -- with its tales of good versus evil, its epic scope and complexity, and even its transgressive undertone -- but to his unblinking work ethic and all-consuming devotion to artmaking. This exhibition demonstrates Darger's pervasive influence on the contemporary art discourse and how an examination of the work of self-taught artists is essential for a full understanding of art history. By leaning into the boundaries of the Western canon, "Dargerism" illustrates how one self-taught master has spawned a new movement, a wholly new "ism."
"Dargerism: Contemporary Artists and Henry Darger" is made possible by support from the Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation and Agnes Gund.
Museum exhibitions are supported in part by the Leir Charitable Foundations in memory of Henry J. & Erna D. Leir, the Gerard C. Wertkin Exhibition Fund, and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.
New York Times review (4/18)
TONY on Grayson Perry Talk (4/17)
New York Sun review (4/17)
New York Sun preview (4/11)
Monday, April 28, 2008
My Addiction to the COBRA Movement
With the recent creation, by Yors Trooly, of the Bowl Movement, an innovative ceramics experimentation group with roots in Merceresque Tile making and concrete pouring, and RAW mark making (AKA unmediated? Scatological? Pataphysical?)) We are reflecting once more on some of the groups that were initial inspirations for the ongoing pursuit, down cul-de-sacs, (always) of the precipice approach to art making. This approach requires/demands no pre-planning. This is not necessarily the same as ‘automatic’. Thought goes into the bucket hand in hand with gut feeling. The famous judges (with us all our lives) now are embraced and in return attempt to work cooperatively in the execution of works that will be compelling and unrepeatable.
Asger Jorn, Pierre Alyechinsky, Karel Appel, the Lettrists, so on…Twombly (my brother cannot stand him although personally I have to admit a high degree of envy). There are many more. Have they squeezed out all the juice? Can I squeeze out more? Is my writing oblique? Is that a bad thing? Is that a failure of communication? What is communication—being blunt, in your face, direct, immediate, clear? RAW is pretty blunt, or ugly blunt. It all depends on perspective (a horrific word in the annals of Modern Art!!)
PS Yes, I’m having fun.
Asger Jorn, Pierre Alyechinsky, Karel Appel, the Lettrists, so on…Twombly (my brother cannot stand him although personally I have to admit a high degree of envy). There are many more. Have they squeezed out all the juice? Can I squeeze out more? Is my writing oblique? Is that a bad thing? Is that a failure of communication? What is communication—being blunt, in your face, direct, immediate, clear? RAW is pretty blunt, or ugly blunt. It all depends on perspective (a horrific word in the annals of Modern Art!!)
PS Yes, I’m having fun.
Monday, April 21, 2008
What is this Place? (A Guide-book)
I didn’t set out on purpose, one day, to discover myself. That isn’t how this began. I was in the bathroom when I happened to look out of the window and suddenly wondered where I was. It was that simple. I knew I was in the village of South Persimmon and that I needed to pay my mortgage. I wasn’t confused. That wasn’t it. But suddenly I had no idea where my insides were heading exactly.
An old acquaintance was now a lifeless body awaiting a toxicology report either in the flophouse where he’d died, or in a city morgue. He had no family to speak of. A good friend would claim his body, save it from Potter’s Field. But that still left Allen. Where was he off to now? These questions have a habit of rebounding. Where were any of us—in our heads, our toes, the sky, the dirt?
And how did you get there? Was it walkable? Did I give you a key? Or did you have to buy a ticket? Did I even ask you to come? Did you get lost on the way? Was it dark by the time you arrived? Was I still here? I need to know the answer to all these questions so I can write it all down, make it easier for others later on. It’ll be a guide-book.
I’ll have a chapter on the sights, the best restaurants, eateries and pubs. I’ll keep it manageable and add a link to Google Maps. Of course I’ll have to explore the town thoroughly—leave no stone unturned, no street unwalked, no body untapped. Tapping bodies is an art in itself and requires dexterity and sensitivity—if you’ve got little fingers all to the better.
The stream that runs through this town is called Consciousness, which is certainly a sweet name. You should all dip your toes in it someday. That way the gloom of rising gas prices, the cancerous cough of the swindle, the searing pain of trust dying in your lap as you are ripped off yet again, is tempered by a golden light that shows us a few of the exciting things going on in our own backyard, outside the box, on the dirt side of the coffin, where there are still gems yet to be uncovered.
An old acquaintance was now a lifeless body awaiting a toxicology report either in the flophouse where he’d died, or in a city morgue. He had no family to speak of. A good friend would claim his body, save it from Potter’s Field. But that still left Allen. Where was he off to now? These questions have a habit of rebounding. Where were any of us—in our heads, our toes, the sky, the dirt?
And how did you get there? Was it walkable? Did I give you a key? Or did you have to buy a ticket? Did I even ask you to come? Did you get lost on the way? Was it dark by the time you arrived? Was I still here? I need to know the answer to all these questions so I can write it all down, make it easier for others later on. It’ll be a guide-book.
I’ll have a chapter on the sights, the best restaurants, eateries and pubs. I’ll keep it manageable and add a link to Google Maps. Of course I’ll have to explore the town thoroughly—leave no stone unturned, no street unwalked, no body untapped. Tapping bodies is an art in itself and requires dexterity and sensitivity—if you’ve got little fingers all to the better.
The stream that runs through this town is called Consciousness, which is certainly a sweet name. You should all dip your toes in it someday. That way the gloom of rising gas prices, the cancerous cough of the swindle, the searing pain of trust dying in your lap as you are ripped off yet again, is tempered by a golden light that shows us a few of the exciting things going on in our own backyard, outside the box, on the dirt side of the coffin, where there are still gems yet to be uncovered.
Friday, April 18, 2008
Smalltown Woodshed
For a while now I have been hoping to perpetrate a large—scale drawing or *picture writing in a public space. Clearly I am obsessed with rows: abstract, figurative and everything in between, and I always build grids to hang them on. New York City provides the biggest, most varied grids of all—grids and panels are everywhere.
The chance to draw/apply my images on a monumental scale using limited means (e.g. house paint brushes, rollers and scrapers), would be a departure and a challenge.
I’d also very much like the opportunity to create these forms by cutting out metal, creating woodblock prints, or drawing on and firing tiles—all approaches I long to explore.
The way I build my pictures (or write them) is rarely preplanned. I prefer to approach the surface and simply begin. I believe I am a strong editor of my own work. I’m not interested in offending for the sake of it. However the imagery I employ is open ended and may well be political or contentious and offensive to some. I am trying to hear through, disentangle, the strands and layers of my thinking. We are all constantly being bombarded by ideas, sights and sounds and sorting it all out is a project without end. As I attempt to organize these thoughts I am interested in avoiding the obvious, preferring to lay down forms that take a while to digest. Frequently I end up with somewhat enigmatic signs/forms/symbols. I hope they are open to multiple individual interpretations. I like to believe the forms that insist on returning again and again are particularly potent on an archetypal or universal level, and that a mural built of such forms would instinctively or unconsciously resonate with a wide audience.
This is a scary and exhilarating approach and perpetrating such in the Public realm would require a huge amount of trust on the part of the Public/Space.
*The analogy to writing is appropriate. Here are two reasons why:
1. Just as words like “and” and “the” will appear almost inevitably on a printed page, there are forms in my drawings that are similarly ubiquitous. Certain motifs keep reappearing in the drawings that appear to serve a similar purpose—as bridges between narratives or links in a chain.
2. We all instinctively recoil if the kerning or leading of type on a page is off and I feel the same need to balance the forms on the given page. Page can mean any given surface from theatrical drop cloths to building site hoardings, and tile walls.
The chance to draw/apply my images on a monumental scale using limited means (e.g. house paint brushes, rollers and scrapers), would be a departure and a challenge.
I’d also very much like the opportunity to create these forms by cutting out metal, creating woodblock prints, or drawing on and firing tiles—all approaches I long to explore.
The way I build my pictures (or write them) is rarely preplanned. I prefer to approach the surface and simply begin. I believe I am a strong editor of my own work. I’m not interested in offending for the sake of it. However the imagery I employ is open ended and may well be political or contentious and offensive to some. I am trying to hear through, disentangle, the strands and layers of my thinking. We are all constantly being bombarded by ideas, sights and sounds and sorting it all out is a project without end. As I attempt to organize these thoughts I am interested in avoiding the obvious, preferring to lay down forms that take a while to digest. Frequently I end up with somewhat enigmatic signs/forms/symbols. I hope they are open to multiple individual interpretations. I like to believe the forms that insist on returning again and again are particularly potent on an archetypal or universal level, and that a mural built of such forms would instinctively or unconsciously resonate with a wide audience.
This is a scary and exhilarating approach and perpetrating such in the Public realm would require a huge amount of trust on the part of the Public/Space.
*The analogy to writing is appropriate. Here are two reasons why:
1. Just as words like “and” and “the” will appear almost inevitably on a printed page, there are forms in my drawings that are similarly ubiquitous. Certain motifs keep reappearing in the drawings that appear to serve a similar purpose—as bridges between narratives or links in a chain.
2. We all instinctively recoil if the kerning or leading of type on a page is off and I feel the same need to balance the forms on the given page. Page can mean any given surface from theatrical drop cloths to building site hoardings, and tile walls.
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Ink Blot Drawings
Inspired by current Drawing Show at MOMA: (text copied without permission)
Glossolalia: Languages of Drawing
March 26–July 7, 2008
The Paul J. Sachs Drawings Galleries, third floor
Some artists have always functioned beyond the "isms" of art history, following personal and unique paths, sometimes shaped by biography, but just as often informed by devotion to a specific subject matter, medium, or technique. Glossolalia: Languages of Drawing, featuring selected works from MoMA's drawings collection, reveals the underlying and unexpected links between the works of a diverse group of artists. Ultimately, the exhibition suggests that even amidst iconoclasm, isolation, or the pursuit of invented worlds and obsessions, shared methods can lead to a common visual language.
I love these shows. In particular I was responding this time around to (Bruce Connor's?) Rorschach ink blot drawings. The drawing shown is done by my six year old.
Friday, April 4, 2008
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