No, the pictures above are not from the Outsider Art Fair 20th anniversary.
Viewing the 20th anniversary outsider art fair from afar, through slide shows, it appears after all that time the field (as I hate to call it) is still confused, too inclusive and loaded with baggage. At best a misnomer, the term has been squabbled over for so long I gave up, but with distance and time, I will revisit.
Shown here is the material which first attracted my eye, the Black Folk Art show of 1982. A magnificent exhibition of material which was mistakenly included under the rubric of outsider art around the same time, but a show which to this day remains as one of the best curated art shows of my lifetime.
The true defining criteria for anyone being marketed as an outsider is a complete lack of training in the arts. No schooling and I'm not fooling. I have always felt anyone aware enough of the art world to claim to be an outsider doesn't qualify AS an outsider. I don't mind artists, dealers or collectors fighting over the definition, if they still do..but once again it is obvious a few ringers are slipping in. People who even begin to utter "I am an outsider artist" do not pass the test. And no, art school "drop-outs" do NOT qualify either. Neither does anything from an "other-worldly" environment, culture or country if it is part of the regional milieu.
The other primary criteria is that the artists work in some form of isolation. This could be as a result of institutionalization, a lack or educational opportunities, a religious fervor, an undefined particular visionary impulse...you name it...but while creating their initial body of work they have no idea anyone else is doing it, and they make it all from their own devices. No looking at Sotheby's catalogs or finding a "how to paint" brochure at the flea market. None. NONE.
However, the "trained or untrained" aspect, dicey enough, isn't the most unfortunate definitional failure of the material or the show. It is the inherent dichotomy of lumping together artists who come from no school and FIT into no school together in one place. How can a group of artists be labeled and lumped as outsiders when by definition they have absolutely nothing to do with each other?Which is why I show the photographs above. You see, these artists DID come from a "school" of sorts. All the artists included in the Black Folk Art show had something in common...all were from fairly early generations which were descendants of slaves. They thus, to some degree or another, shared the common experience of having been displaced...and all held again, to some degree, a shared African-American esthetic which was retained, unconscious or not, in their work. They shared a common origin (to the extent that their ancestors were taken from one huge continent and brought to another) and they shared an inherent consistency of cultural artistic expression. Which is why together they formed a successful exhibition. Not really a "school" mind you, as originally none of them had any idea the others existed, but an esthetic. They lacked educational skills, formal training and awareness of the arts but that was the result of racism more than any other circumstance.They were mistakenly included originally as "outsiders" when the field formed, and their works still appear here and there as by far the best work in the outsider show. Bill Traylor, Sam Doyle, William Edmondson. Even the lesser known and lesser skilled George Williams, whose frontal totemic carved figures look quite smart above. I say the best work, but that still doesn't mean they belong there.
There is other good work at the show...I presume the magnificent Electric Pencil work was there, and I suspect James Castle was represented, but they were true isolates with completely unique consistent visions. In other words, they qualify but they do not belong.Unfortunately the few rare genuine articles and the Black folk artists from the exhibition pictured above continue to be presented in a forum which persists to lump together all manner of eccentrics, wanna-bees and what a good friend of mine used to refer to, with little irony, as "failed trained artists" on the walls with no intellectual validity or foundation other than a good weekend bourse. In other words, a good show to visit but not to write about.Pair of original "installation view" photographs by Michelle Andonian 1983 Collection Jim Linderman
Painter, picker and professional woman hater Albion Clough of Maine strums up some attention here in a circa 1940 real photo postcard. His stuffed friend announcing the next meeting of the Woman Haters club is "Brother Bill" and the paintings are for sale, but I can't find one today. I haven't checked Sotheby's online yet. Clough seems to be playing one of those cheap Roy Rogers type guitars, but he later obtained a lovely resonator.
In the late 1930s, Clough appeared in a newsreel or two. He claimed his woman hater club had 100 members, and apparently a championship convention was held on occasion to pick the best woman-hater, but Albion always won.
To see his brother, active 40 years later, one Royal Robertson, click HERE. I am afraid Robertson out-hated and out-painted Clough, but they certainly would have gotten along. I'd have visited Albion too, but I wasn't born yet. Albion Clough passed away in 1944. More information on the hermit appears HERE.
The famous Little Rascals episode of the Women Haters club (titled Mail and Female) appears, in part, below along with the Three Stooges short Women Haters Club (which was shot entirely in rhyme!) made in 1934. I am not sure if Clough saw either.
World's Champion Woman-Hater Albion L. Clough Real Photo Postcard Collection Jim Linderman
Having pretty much given up the "term warfare" which surrounded "outsider art, vernacular art, self-taught art, eccentric art, art brut, amateur art, sunday painter art, institutionalized art, marginalized art, visionary art, folk art, naive art" and the like in favor of my all- inclusive term "goofy" I hear present a splendid exhibit of some of the goofiest.E.K. Lund was a part-time magician who lived to the age of 100. From the looks of these cards, that is about one plywood figure a year.Photo Postcards from Lund's Garden.See Also "Preacher, Artist, Magician, Centenarian" HEREDULL TOOL DIM BULB BOOKS HERE
The remaining portion of a "place your head here" box from Holy Land environment in Waterbury, Connecticut.
Original Photograph (detail) Jim Linderman 1994
In the 1960's, a student at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia was dumpster-diving and made a remarkable find. A scrapbook consisting of dozens of pages of the female form (in stockings) which had been carefully assembled into a fetish object of considerable girth! With 80 pages, and despite decay, the student saved the packet for decades. They have now been published in a book which is itself a little work of art. Our anonymous artist would be proud, though his family, who likely tossed the originals hoping they would be lost for good, might not be as pleased. There is NO NUDITY as with the convention of the times, but as you can see, risque might be the appropriate word. Art Brut with scissors and tape. A perfect gift for anyone interested in fashion or retro-fashion, stockings, legs, women...and, well...anyone with an interest in the unusual. It is linked at right, and there is a free 15 page preview HERE.
Often the artistic quality of an artist means less than the story. This is an example, though I find the paintings, of which there are hundreds and hundreds, charming and accomplished in a perverted way. Yes, they are severely cropped here. I've learned my blog provider has a different idea of appropriate than I do, so all I'm showing is the heads (when I can isolate them among the morass of limbs, hands and other body parts, most rendered WAY out of proportion) Trust they are, well...creative. All are unsigned. The best have a chalky white quality which looks like shoe polish, but I am afraid you won't be able to tell from these details.
D.H. produced huge stacks of these watercolors in his summer cottage. I suppose the family thought he was fishing, but when he passed away well into his 90's they were found hidden among a big box of Life magazines in the attic. An old story for fans of outsider art, but it never gets tired for me. A fevered brow, a driven eccentricity and a paintbrush gets me every time. Something about a family happening upon a huge body of unknown work is fascinating...and when it reveals Great-Gramp's secret obsession, all the better. Some of the work was destroyed. I don't want to know why. At the least, he had a delicate and consistent vision, you can tell his work from across the room...and all are marked with a playful, well-rendered eroticism. In some the participants are sprawled over poorly drawn modern furniture. They aren't primitive, but he certainly followed the adage most primitives do, that is that the most important part of a painting is made the largest. I am hiding the artist's name as that's the way the family wants it.
They seem to have been done in the early 1970's for the most part...but one of mine has a hand written tally sheet on the reverse tracking the results of the Mondale election. Fritz lost. All and every manner of partnering up you can imagine is there. The artist made no distinction between gender in the least, and if there is a personal preference, I sure can't find it.
So there you go. Another tale of a reclusive artist, painting for his own pleasure and piling up the work without a single sale or concern that it will. My kind of art. I did do a little research...the last line of his obit reads "he loved to carve and draw."Group of watercolors by "D.H." c. 1970. Collection Jim Linderman
Marian was born Flora May Spore in Michigan and became the first female dentist in Bay County, Michigan. After her mother died in 1919, she had a major transformation. She gave up her dental practice, moved to Guam and began painting. According to her sister, she had never shown any inclination towards art until that time. Like all aspiring artists, she soon rented a studio in Greenwich Village. Having her own style, self-taught, she laid the paint on deep, building the canvas up so thick at times it looked like sculpture.
A good story, but now it gets weird. Apparently Spore could somehow channel dead artists and attributed her skills to the spirit of her late mother. She explored her ESP talents with Dr. Prince of the Boston Psychic Society. Her paintings became a sensation, being exhibited at the finest galleries in NYC. The American Weekly printed a story titled "Pictures my Mother sends me from the Grave." No less than anti-spiritualist Harry Houdini was taken with her work and said, I am not kidding, “It is a great exhibition. I am certain of Miss Spore’s honesty. I have never excluded the possibility of supernatural intervention from my belief. I have been engaged in the exposure of criminal fakers… there is no question of that here. Miss Spore has something beautiful and is conveying it to her fellow men.”
With her success as a painter, which at the time was apparently extensive, she opened a soup kitchen for the hungry on the Bowery. Now 1/3 artist, 1/3 soup kitchen worker and 1/3 socialite, Marian met Billionaire Irving T. Bush, another whole story as big as the painting shown here...who married her in Reno one hour after the divorce from his second wife was finalized.
Now, at least seemingly, the artist has been forgotten. The last time her work was shown was a retrospective in 1946, the work has not been seen in public for over 60 years. I for one would love to see it. She wrote a book about her spirit paintings entitled "They" in 1947. Except for the incredible, detailed, extraordinary wiki profile HERE, on which I relied completely for this article, the remarkable work seems to have vanished into thin air. In fact, a Google search turns up only one photo of the artist and none of her work.
I found the photograph here at an antique show, it was taken in 1938. I've cropped it, labeled it...and I will be more than happy to share the entire photo and credits with any art scholar who can show me more of the work! There is a SERIOUS book tale and exhibition here...anyone want to do the work? I don't have the energy.
Imagine if your father's old train set could have filled an airplane hanger. (I hear Neil Young's does, and everything Neil does is cool) Well, "Roadside America" is a train set not only as big as a football field, it also has a fantastic creepy vibe from 1935, when it still was amazing that you could push a button and make things move. (Note bell-ringer button above) FOUR THOUSAND tiny industrious people and FOUR HUNDRED little buildings. Not only that, STILL OPEN EVERY DAY. I've been, more than once, and here is the spoiler: after letting you roam free a while to get value for your dollar, they line you up against the rear wall, stand you on bleachers, turn off all the lights and play a scratchy patriotic soundtrack while illuminating various things which make America great...first the churches, then various elements of throbbing industry, and finishing big with huge waving flags. Everyone leaves stunned and head further down the road to Hershey, PA for fresher treats. They have a website which could also use a little dusting off.
Three Roadside America postcards c. 1960 Collection Jim Linderman
Mr Warther worked at a steel mill 21 years but his splendid model took only 9 months. Note the big-ass trunk he used to lug it around! A "groganized" real photo, circa 1955. Grogan Photo was a Danville Illinois producer of real photos.Steel Mill Carved of Walnut and Ivory by Ernest Warther
Real Photo Post Card circa 1955 Collection Jim Linderman
