Date: Fri 17-Jul-1998

Publication: Ant

Author: CAROLL

Quick Words:

AVAM-Outsider-Art

Full Text:

Outsider Art -- An Inside View

(W/Cuts)

By Marion Harris

Photographs by Jerry

Rosenfeld

BALTIMORE, MD. -- The American Visionary Art Museum (AVAM) is the first museum

in the United States dedicated to Outsider Art -- defined as art created from

a compulsive inner vision by those outside the cultural mainstream. Compelled

yet rarely trained to create, and uninfluenced by the structures and

boundaries that apply to more convenient art, Outsider or visionary artists

and their works can offer a rare purity and individuality of expression.

The traditional art world has struggled for decades with the concept of and a

label for artists isolated from their own community by choice, geography,

ideology or madness. With their compelling, albeit sometimes disturbing

imagery, outsiders have eluded description, comprehension and categorization.

The French artist, Jean Dubuffet, was the first to define such art with the

term Art Brut at a Paris exhibition in 1947. In addition to a name, Dubuffet

gave this untutored art an identity which would lead to its value and

recognition. Translating literally as "Raw Art," it refers to a pure art that

spurts from the psyche. Art that reflects and generates a raw, unprocessed

truth. Art from the soul, not a school.

The Paris exhibit was the genesis of Dubuffet's collection, which in turn was

to become the cornerstone of Collection de l'Art Brut in Lausanne,

Switzerland. It is important to know that the term Art Brut is protected and

can only apply to works in this museum, or designated by it.

Roger Cardinal, professor of literary and visual studies at the University of

Kent, England, and an international authority on the field, anglified the name

for us with the term Outsider Art in his 1972 book of the same name. Now, more

than 25 years later, with a hugely increased interest in the subject and an

even greater number of ways to describe it -- from alternative and intuitive

to marginal, obsessive or psychotic -- the label of Outsider Art is widely

used and accepted.

In a 1991 interview with Willem Volkersz, Roger Cardinal acknowledges just how

catchy the name has become while cautioning us that it refers to art without

tradition or formal expectation, and that to use the term too loosely or out

of context will eventually make it meaningless.

In Europe, the optimistic and positive years after the Second World War

heralded a growing interest in the less traditional art forms, paralleling

America's developing awareness of folk art at that time. Of particular

significance was The Hayward Gallery's groundbreaking show Outsiders in London

in 1979, considered by many to have been the catalyst for the emerging

interest in the field, and the public opening of The Collection de l'Art Brut

in Lausanne, Switzerland, in 1976.

Less than ten years later, in 1985, on a trip to Switzerland with her husband,

LeRoy, Rebecca Hoffberger visited Collection de l'Art Brut in Lausanne and

knew that her mission and purpose was to actualize a lifelong goal of bringing

its equivalent to America. A decade later, in November 1995, with proceeds

from the sale of their collection of German Expressionist art and personally

raised funding totaling $7 million, not to mention immeasurable grit, vision

and perseverance (but no official stationery or full-time staff), Rebecca

Hoffberger and her husband inaugurated Avam's opening in a three-story,

35,000-square-foot building in Baltimore's inner harbor.

Deemed by Congress as America's national museum and education center for the

best in original self-taught artistry, AVAM has earned acclaim as an

architectural jewel. The American Visionary Art Museum comprises seven

galleries in the main building; a 45-foot-high sculpture barn, formerly a

whisky warehouse; a wildflower garden, with a non-denominational meditation or

wedding chapel constructed from the wood of live -- not downed -- trees; and

the top-rated Joy America Cafe. With characteristic attention to detail, and

impeccable instinct, Rebecca Hoffberger recruited four-star, five-diamond chef

Peter Zimmer to the cafe, a self-taught, culinary visionary from Santa Fe,

N.M., to create the menu and establish the restaurant.

Premiering the unusual format of year long theme exhibitions, AVAM's inaugural

show in November 1995 was "Tree of Life," which featured 400 works by 125

visionary, self-taught artists created from wood -- a tribute to mankind's

spiritual and earthly connection to nature.

Both the press and public responded to America's first visionary art museum

with fitting exuberance and acclaim. An editorial in The Baltimore Sun found

the museum "Profound without being pedantic, whimsical without being

ridiculous, an artistic tour de force," while Benjamin Forgery of The

Washington Post had a more animated perspective, describing the exhibit as

"Intensely focused, powerfully moving, diverting, disturbed and serene." CNN

was superlative with its critique, calling AVAM "One of the most fantastic

museums anywhere in the world."

The museum, however, a tribute to innocence with the potential to inspire

child-like joy, is perhaps best seen through a child's eyes in this quote from

a nine-year-old visitor to his mother: "This place is way cooler than the

mall."

"Tree of Life," curated by Roger Manley, was followed by "The Wind in My Hair"

in 1996, a grouping of more than 300 works expressing the universal desire to

break free from our earthly ties and reach for the sky. Manley was also

curator of the subsequent show, "The End is Near." Works portraying

cataclysmic images and apocalyptic visions, frequent themes in the lives of

Outsiders and visionaries often intent on changing the world and its future,

spoke to fundamental fears of disaster while addressing the human capacity to

enervate and renew.

Awareness of the push and pull of the contradictions in the human condition is

a key element in AVAM's mission of promoting understanding and even delight in

the unfamiliar, and a component in their goal of empowerment of the individual

by intellectual exploration and creative self-reliance. The current exhibit

reflects the museum's core beliefs and encourages viewers to examine their

own, with another universal theme: love.

John and Maggie Maizels, founders and editors of Raw Vision, the international

magazine covering the world of intuitive, visionary and Outsider Art, were the

curators of choice to examine the subject of love. In addition to the above

credentials, they met while students at art school in London and have been

married for 29 years. Drawing from the experiences of a shared life in the

arts, the couple inspires viewers of AVAM's newest show, "Love: Error and

Eros."

Eighteen months in the making, the show comprises 200 works culled from an

initial group of 700 by Outsider artists from Europe and America, highlighting

five different aspects of love.

True Love

The pure expression of love can be seen in the paintings of Sam Gant and the

remarkable huge embroideries by Danielle Jacqui, a leading figure of Artists

Singuiliers, a group of visionary artists from Provence. And it is almost

palpable in the drawings by Aloise Corbaz on loan from Collection de l'Art

Brut in Lausanne.

Born in Switzerland in 1886, Corbaz's culture and education led her to work as

a private tutor in the court of Kaiser Wilhelm, II, before World War II.

Infatuated with him from a distance, she created a private fantasy of their

love affair and in 1918 chose to retreat from the real world to a hospital bed

to nurture her make-believe life with the Kaiser. Institutionalized until her

death in 1964, Corbaz left a legacy of bright, powerful drawings and

accompanying texts illustrating her private courtly world, giving us insight

into it and exemplifying the essence of the Outsider.

Love Divine

More open to personal interpretation than the other aspects of love, divine

love relates to the religious and the spiritual, but can transcend even that

lofty plain to reach another indefinable level. In this category, the show

places Alex Grey's paintings of translucent images revealing anatomical

X-rays. Taking ten years to complete, this unique series of 21 paintings is

detailed with an eerie precision gleaned from his childhood obsession with

dead animals and resulting apprenticeship in the morgue at Harvard Medical

School. Also included are the painted doors by Mary Proctor from Tallahassee,

Fla. Doors ranging in size from small cabinet to double garage examples, they

all serve the purpose of repeating her prophecy and God's word when he

commanded her to paint on doors in 1995 after three members of her family were

trapped and killed by a fire when fire-fighters couldn't open a door to rescue

them.

Love Scorned

Howard Finster's work can be found here along with paintings by Albert Louden,

whose works portend imminent disaster -- from a volcano to a family spat, and

the obsessive postage stamp collages of Paul Edlin. But no scorn seems more

heart-felt and wounded (although not necessarily earned) than the misogynistic

messages aimed at his former wife Adell in the painted signs by Royal

Robertson. These are made all the more poignant when we consider the fact that

in real life, outside a museum setting and inside Royal Robertson's tin shack

in Louisiana, they stand next to a homemade shrine to the perfect woman -- his

mother.

Love Profane: Love profane might be the least appealing of all love's aspects

and the most difficult to accept, but its intensity surely deserves our

examination. From the deceptively amusing works of "Creative" DePrie from West

Virginia, to the complex, charged pen and pencil drawings by Harvard educated

Malcolm McKesson, now almost 90 years old, to Sam Doyle's crude works on

corrugated tin, and the latent violence in works by Schroder-Sonnenhein, all

imply the sexual love inherent in this category.

Love Lost: Sylvian Fusco's seldom seen enigmatic works, on loan from

Collection de l'Art Brut, personify unrequited love with his touching and

tender pencil drawings of the prostitute he once loved. Raymond Matterson,

whose intricate autobiographical embroideries measuring less than two inches

square are best viewed with a magnifying glass, was at the show's opening talk

and give a slide presentation on his unlikely role as embroiderer

extra-ordinaire and how it came about. Now a professional artist and married

with a son, he explained how he was sentenced to 15 years in a Connecticut

prison after an attempted hold-up with a toy gun. The resulting despair

brought about by the realization of what he might have lost by his actions,

led to Matterson's teaching himself to embroider using the thread from

unraveled socks.

Also signifying enormous loss and the ability to recover from it is Jay

Battenfield's jewel car from Texas. The 1963 Corvair completely covered,

inside and out, in trinkets, gem stones and jewelry, is a tribute to his wife

who was killed in a car crash. It stands as much as testimony of his love for

her as effective therapy for his own grief. Evidenced especially in works in

this category, loss and the sheer grit and originality born of desperation can

only inspire us all as we reflect on the human condition and the universal

dream of hope within adversity.

The curators agree, characteristically, that the power and depth they aimed

for in this show could not have been achieved without the superlative

installation by Mark Ward. By dividing the topic of love into five categories,

and using the museum spaced to separate the works physically as well as

emotionally, Mark Ward along with John and Maggie Maizels ensure that whether

sweet, provocative, disturbing or disillusioned, the works in this show relate

to love's different aspects as profoundly as they relate to the viewer.

"Love: Error and Eros"

The American Visionary Art Museum, 800 Key Highway, Baltimore, Maryland (AVAM)

shows have a yearly format -- The show runs until May 30, 1999. Museum hours

are 10 am-6 pm Tuesday through Sunday. Admission is $6 adult, $4 seniors and

students.