outsider art

Recognizing History

Kathleen Cullen — Thu, 26 Nov 2020 16:17:52 +0000

Recognizing History Kathleen Cullen November 26, 2020 - 11:17

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Animals, Idols and Us

Shari Mendelson at the Tibor De Nagy Gallery

There is a sense of recognition of the image before you. You know it, but not as it stands before in glass made in Ancient Rome or Greece. After a few moments your memory kicks in and you realize the image is taken from an Outsider Artist, Bill Traynor drawing of a man on a horse. You then begin to wonder more deeply about the materials used. Is it really glass-it appears almost too delicate. This will be one of the many questions that you have when seeing artist Shari Mendelson’s new show - Animals, Idols and Us —at Tibor De Nagy 11 Rivington Street on the Lower East side, October 29 to December 5, 2020.

The artist talked with me around how she developed the show and why she chose iconic images from that range from American Folk to ancient Egypt.

Kathleen Cullen: For this exhibit it looks as if you created a mini museum. Tell us about how you selected the images?

Shari Mendelson: Choosing the sources that influence my work isintuitive. Many of the works that I use as a model are pieces that I have been looking at for years. As I’m working on a piece, it may take on a quality of something else I’ve seen and I organically shift from one form to another. During the pandemic, I started looking at Tang dynasty tomb sculptures: figures that were meant to comfort or entertain the dead. I was also looking at Sumerian votive figures: figures that would embody an individual and pray on their behalf. Although I’m looking closely at these sources and others, my pieces each take on an identity of their own. They are not meant to be replicas.

Horse and Rider for Bill Traylor, 2020, repurposed plastic and mixed media 12 1/2 x 3 x 10”

KC: The pieces are exquisitely executed and look very precious. Ironically we learn they are made of recycled plastic. Can you describe the material?

SM: As you said, the main material is recycled plastic. I save the plastic bottles that I personally use, I find them on the street, and friends and family also save them for me. Our plastic trash offers a wealth of shapes, textures and colors that I use to form my sculptures.

KC: What is the process used to actually create the piece?

SM: I cut the plastic bottles into pieces that conform to the specific convex and concave shapes that I need. Then I hot glue the plastic pieces together to get a sense of the form. Next I reinforce the seams with a moldable resin which physically makes the piece strong and visually emphasis the process. My method of working is not linear — I cut and carve parts away and remake the piece over and over until I get the exact form I want. The piece often goes in a direction of its own and I have to be willing to go with the process and let the form develop. Once the overall shape seems right, I use acrylic polymers with mica powders and pigments to give the pieces a glaze-like surface.

KC: What experience did you think the viewer would have when they see they work? What do you hope they take with them?

SM: I hope the viewer will be transported. It would be great if they considered the cultures of the past and our place in the continuum of time. I hope the viewer will notice the humor in the work and see my reverence for the historical sources. But really, I hope the viewer will have an experience that is unique to themselves.

Praying Lotus Woman7, 2020 ,repurposed plastic and mixed media 17 x 10 x 11”

KC: How does this show fit into the work you have been doing? Will this serve as a further influence and what can we expect next?

SM: I’ve been working with recycled plastic as my material and ancient art as my source for about twelve years. The pieces in Animals, Idols, and Us are more figurative than the work that preceded it. My work comes out of my working process — it reveals itself slowly through that process. I have ideas of pieces that I want to make but we’ll have to see where they take me.

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Short Talk with Paul Laster

Kathleen Cullen — Thu, 16 Jan 2020 03:41:46 +0000

Short Talk with Paul Laster Kathleen Cullen January 15, 2020 - 22:41

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Esther Hammerman painting. From the Nicole Eisenman collection.

Welcome to Short Talks -- highlighting the many voices of the Art World. Today we are talking with curator Paul Laster, who's current exhibition, Relishing the Raw: Contemporary Artists Collecting Outsider Art, opens at the Outsider Art Fair at the Metropolitan Pavilion in New York on Thursday, January 16 and runs through Sunday, January 19, 2020.

Kathleen Cullen: Can you explain the the term Outsider artist and how that is different from mainstream artists?

Paul Laster: In my understanding of the term, Outsider artists are self-taught artists, who do not have an institutional education; artists who have been institutionalized because of mental conditions; and artists who were born with physical or mental disabilities that impair their work options. There is also another category of naive artists, who may have a college education in one field but start making art, which they had not been institutionally trained to do, at a later point in life.

Curtis Cuffie sculpture. From the Kenny Schachter collection.

KC: Who are some of the self-taught artists that we may already be familiar with but don't necessarily put in this genre?

PL: Niki de Saint Phalle, who has an upcoming survey show at MoMA PS1 was self taught, as was Carol Rama, who was awarded the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the Venice Biennale in 2003. Vincent Van Gogh, Frida Kahlo and Jean-Michel Basquiat were self-taught artists, and Jasper Johns, who dropped out of school, could also qualify as one.

KC: Your exhibit will feature Outsider Art from the collections of many established artists. What would you say their interest in the work is? How is it different than art collectors or the person who makes an occasional art purchase?

PL: I believe that most of the contemporary artists that are lending works to "Relishing the Raw" are attracted to the work of Outsider artists because they find it to be art that's made for pure reasons rather than for the market. Some are drawn to works that have an affinity to their own work and others are fascinated with the obsessions of the Outsider artists. And some yet have simply started collecting these artists because they repeatedly ran into them on street corners in cities around the country. Unlike traditional art collectors, very few of these contemporary artists are buying Outsider Art for investment value, especially at today's prices for established Outsiders.

Jon Serl painting. From the Sam Messer collection.

KC: Describe from your experience the interest in Outsider Art and why, if you agree, there is growth both in interest and investing?

PL: I was studying art and photography at New York's Fashion Institute of Technology while working part-time at the Museum of Modern Art. When a full-time job became available I decided that I was learning more at the museum than I was in college and dropped out. I had also studied with Lissette Model, who was a self-taught photographer and Diane Arbus's teacher, at the New School. I became successful as an artist and an independent curator and turned to writing around the same time that I started going to the Outsider Art Fair at the Puck Building in Soho. As I began covering the fair as a journalist, my interest in Outsider Art grew. At the fair's invitation, I organized a talk on the untrained art of Jean-Michel Basquiat in 2014; and after organizing subsequent panels, I curated a show for the Paris edition last year.

In regard to the growth in interest and investing in Outsider Art, I would say that the innovative management of the Outsider Art Fair by Wide Open Arts, which acquired it in 2013, and blockbuster exhibitions like "The Encyclopedic Palace" for the 2013 Venice Biennale and "Outliers and American Vanguard Art" at the National Gallery of Art in 2018, which imaginatively mixed the work of Outsider artists with modern and contemporary artworks, should be credited. The 2018 exhibition "History Refused to Die: Highlights from the Souls Grown Deep Foundation Gift" (link title to https://www.metmuseum.org/press/exhibitions/2018/history-refused-to-die) at the Metropolitan Museum of Art also played an important role in uplifting the status of Outsider Art.

KC: Can you describe some of the outlets in which these artists work independently, with a group or as part of agency?

PL: There are several institutional groups in the United States and abroad that supply artists with materials to make work and a system to sell it. Creative Growth Art Center in Oakland, LAND Gallery in Brooklyn, Project Onward in Chicago and Fountain House Gallery, and Pure Vision Arts in New York, which are all doing the fair this year, are just a few that come to mind.

lady shalimar painting. From the Cindy Sherman collection.

KC: How were the artist collectors that participated in your show selected? Have you known of their interest in Outsider work for sometime?

PL: Once the proposal for my exhibition was accepted, I reached out to dealers in the field and artist friends and their galleries to compile a list of contemporary artists who collect Outsider Art, and to learn about the self-taught artists they treasure. Communicating with more than 100 artists, curators and dealers, I discovered a big community of contemporary artists attracted to this genre. If the artist I contacted didn’t collect this type of work, they knew of another artist who was a fervent fan. While some artists passed on showing works from their collections and a few didn't respond at all, most said yes -- leading to what I hope will be an exciting exhibition.

KC: Are there any Outsider artists you see as being on the horizon, that you believe may be on their way to a larger success?

PL: I like the work of Raquel Albarron, whom my wife Renee Riccardo, an independent curator and consultant, discovered making work at LAND in Brooklyn, and later went to see and support when Albarron had a one-person exhibition at Fortnight Institute in 2018. I also like the work of Walter Mika, who currently has a solo show at Shrine on the Lower East Side.

KC: What are you most excited about for "Relishing the Raw," in terms of individual and/or collective work, growing interest/larger recognition and introducing new voices or stories into the art market?

PL: I'm excited for visitors to see how much interest contemporary artists actually have in the work of Outsider artists -- how much they appreciate it for the variety of reasons that I earlier stated. It shows that being self-taught and making art should no longer be classified as Folk Art, rather it should be considered part of the contemporary art dialogue.

Paul Esparza painting. From the terry Winters Collection.

KC: Can you name an outsider artist whose work you covet or already own?

PL: The Outsider Art that I most covet is the painting, sculpture and photography of Eugene Von Bruenchenhein. I like Von Bruenchenhein for his imagination, experimentation and the diversity of mediums, materials and forms that he explored. I own a number artworks that are made by anonymous self-taught artists, but my wife and I also have a substantial collection of paintings by Carolyn Goe, who is a less celebrated Outsider artist. We discovered her selling her paintings near Cooper Union in the mid-1980s and repeatedly bought them to support her endeavor and lifestyle. Gracie Mansion had shown her work back in the heyday of the East Village art scene and White Columns resurrected the work with a solo exhibition of Goe's paintings from novelist and cultural critic Lynne Tillman's personal collection last year.

KC: What do you hope people see, feel and experience with the work in the exhibition?

PL: Enchantment would be good for the art and wonderment works for the contemporary artists collecting it.

Paul Laster is an artist, critic, curator, editor, and lecturer. He is a contributing editor at ArtAsiaPacific and Whitehot Magazine of Contemporary Art and writer for Time Out New York, Galerie Magazine, Harper's Bazaar Arabia, Architectural Digest, Cultured, Garage Magazine, Ocula, ArtPulse, Observer, Conceptual Fine Arts and Glasstire. He was Artkrush's founding editor, started The Daily Beast's art section and was art editor of Russell Simmons' Oneworld Magazine, as well as an Adjunct Curator of Photography at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, now MoMA PS1.

[This conversation was conducted online and edited by Kathleen Cullen and Michelangelo De Risi.]

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Curriculum Cuffie

Enjoyed the interview. It brought to mind my past experience with Curtis Cuffie, Carla Cubbitt, and Dorthella Branch. I had them in a show I curated back in '97.

It got slammed by the NYTimes. Here's the link to the review:

http://media.icompendium.com/ddlombar_Assemblage-Review-NYTimes-1997-.pdf

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Pushing Against the Boundaries

Dusty Wright — Sat, 10 May 2014 07:32:38 +0000

Pushing Against the Boundaries Dusty Wright May 10, 2014 - 03:32

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Outsider Art Fair 2014, NYC

Art brut, Naïve art, Outsider art -- the times have changed. Artists no longer have to study and refine their craft in schools of higher learning. They can trust their own instincts, use their own mediums, often mixed and often any found canvas -- street buildings, pieces of wood, any type of paper or board -- to share their muse.

And just as important, because every artist needs a patron, "new" collectors can afford to purchase art that is both relevant and exciting and has real potential to increase in value over the years.

Make no mistake, self-taught artists such as Jean-Michel Basquiat, Henry Darger, Morris Hirshfield, and to a lesser extent even Howard Finster, certainly never get snickers from snobbish art dealers and collectors who might have thumbed their collective noses at these "unskilled" artists just because they lacked formal training. Moreover, with the rise of the internet and the buzz that it can create around an unknown artist, that has all changed. Now these regional artists from the furthest corners of the globe can find a global audience while never even showing their work in a formal gallery show, let alone a museum.

Trolling this fair in Chelsea, their twenty-second year, I approached it with very little PR hype and just my own personal fascination for discovering new unknown artists. (Truth be told, I have collected some lesser known "naïve" artists.) There was so much to take in that I will need a second visit to really explore and appreciate every artist. However, first impressions can be profound, and four artists appealed to me on my very first visit.

The stark realism of self-taught artist Holly Farrell, born in North Bay, Ontario, jumped out at me. Wonderfully presented by the Austin, TX Garde Rail Gallery. Her paintings of every day objects -- a set of spoons, a row of cookbooks, bars of soap, a pair of pumps (image top), toy wrestlers, pulp fiction book cover -- are simple but arresting objects that conjure up emotions of lost memories. Informed by a distinct Americana sensibility are both timeless, but yet immediate, like sensory snapshots embedded in our mind.

The primitive, whimsical child-like quality of former New Jersey-based lawyer Daniel Berlardinelli's paintings have always been arresting and amusing yet thought-provoking. whether rendered on small handbills, large wall paintings, or his "painted" books; all on display for Bourbon-Lally Gallery. His collection of palm-size rocks of various sizes painted black with ironic single words and short phrases (image right) offer a soothing dada simplicity to the our overwrought digital universe.

With so much to take in, I nearly missed the micro detail of the ink, acrylic, and gold leaf work of self-taught Idaho-based artist Stephanie Wilde showing for private dealer Angela Usrey through Tanner-Hill Gallery from Chattanooga, TN. This is extraordinary work by a master technician. Her latest series, which she started in 2008, entitled Golden Bees (Swarm II, imagine above) examines the "AIDS-like" virus devastating the Western Honeybee. The social and ecological implications are devastating, and yet that devastation is informed by her previous work and continued minute attention to detail which, when taking several steps backwards, offer a very different macro vantage.

I was knocked out by English artist Cathy Ward showing for Galerie Toxic. She frames her mysterious swirling "hair" work in antique Victorian frames and even older wooden cross frames. The labyrinth of sensual strands rendered on glass affords the viewer a vantage down some mystical and timeless rabbit hole. Apparently Joy Division's Unknown Pleasures was an album that inspired this work. Unable to conjure up one of Ian Curtis's timeless songs, I immediately started humming the theme from the musical Hair:

"Give me a head with hair, long beautiful hair

Shining, gleaming, streaming, flaxen, waxen

Give me it down to there, hair, shoulder length or longer

Here baby, there momma, everywhere daddy daddy..."

Looking forward to another day of wandering this fascinating fair of outsider fare.

'Til next time...