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slug: American Folk Art Museum Events

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NEW YORK CITY — The American Folk Art Museum is introducing Outsider Art Week to complement and augment the Outsider Art Fair. From Tuesday, January 25, to Sunday, January 30, the Museum has organized a weeklong series of events to focus critical and popular attention on the work of Twentieth and Twenty-First Century self-taught artists.

Among the activities are panel discussions, field trips, tours, and receptions — including the Thirteenth annual “Uncommon Artists” symposium and a new “Outsider Photography” roundtable — exploring the compelling and complex field of contemporary self-taught artists and their work.

For the first time at the Outsider Art Fair the museum will host its own booth, featuring a display of Henry Darger’s planning journal for “In the Realms of the Unreal” that has never before been exhibited, the presentation will also include sketches, photographs, letters and his final diary from the museum’s extensive Henry Darger Study Center collection. Selections from the new film by Jessica Yu In the Realms of the Unreal: The Mystery of Henry Darger will also be screened. Yu’s film has also been held over at Film Forum on West Houston Street, west of Sixth Avenue.

The following are a list of events at the museum: on January 25 at 6 pm, there will be a panel discussion, “Autism Asperger’s Art”; on January 29, the “Uncommon Artists XIII: A Series of Cameo Talks The Anne Hill Blanchard Symposium” will be conducted from 10 am to noon; on January 30, there will be a roundtable discussion from 10 am to noon concerning photography in the self-taught world; and January 25–January 30, daily tours of contemporary objects on view at the American Folk Art Museum with curators and docents will take place at 3 pm. All programs are held at the American Folk Art Museum, 45 West 53 Street. For tickets 212-265-1040, ext 160, or information 212-265-1040, ext 102.

The Folk Art Museum will also be conducting a day trip Friday, January 28, from 10 am to 5 pm, $100 general; $90 members, seniors and students. The day begins at the American Folk Art Museum with a special curatorial tour by Brooke Davis Anderson of the exhibition “Folk Art Revealed.” A motor coach will then take the group downtown to view a private collection of contemporary American art and lunch in SoHo. At Hospital Audiences Inc, the group will learn about art of the mentally disabled, and a West Village penthouse, featuring the work of urban self-taught artists, will be the last stop before the Outsider Art Fair. For information and reservations call 212-977-7170, ext 328.

Upcoming exhibitions and events at the American Folk Art Museum include: February 8 to September 4, “African American Quilts and Artwork from the Collection;” March 22 to September 11, “Self and Subject;” March 17, the Nathan Lerner annual lecture and screening of the film In the Realms of the Unreal: The Mystery of Henry Darger, which shows how Darger forged magic from his lonely life. Short-listed for the Oscar for Best Documentary, nominated for the IFP Gotham Award for Best Documentary, and a selection of the Sundance, Vancouver, Best Documentary, as well as Seattle and London Film Festivals, the audience will have a chance to ask questions after the screening during a discussion with filmmaker Jessica Yu; and April 12 is the Henry Darger Read-a-Thon, where participants read from the 15,000-page manuscript In the Realms of the Unreal .

American Folk Art Museum is at 45 West 53 Street. For information 212-265-1040 or www.folkartmuseum.org