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slug: Highlights Of Outsider Art Fair 2005

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NEW YORK CITY — The Outsider Art Fair is the only fine art fair devoted exclusively to Outsider, Art Brut, primitive, visionary and intuitive arts. Produced by Sanford L. Smith & Associates, this year’s show will take place January 28–30 and features 33 of the finest international dealers.

Roberta Smith of The New York Times described the fair as “phenomenally successful” and noted that each January “…the fair attracts dealers, collectors, artists and art lovers from the world over and inspires exhibitions around town.” Each year curators, collectors and enthusiasts gather at the Outsider Art Fair to discover Outsider art and discuss the work with the leading dealers in the field.

The Outsider Art Fair is the main event of, and inspiration for, Outsider Art Week, presented by the American Folk Art Museum. Visitors may take part in special events, such as a field trip, lectures, special exhibitions and Uncommon Artists Xlll, a symposium featuring Jane Livingston on Thornton Dial, Susan C. Larsen on Louis Monza, Edward Gomez on Domenico Zindato, and John Turner on self-taught photography. New this year, the American Folk Art Museum will host an exhibition from its collection at the Outsider Art Fair.

Some highlights of the Outsider Art Fair 2005 include: Andrew Edlin Gallery, New York, specializing in works by Vahakn Arslanian, Henry Darger and Adolf Wölfi among others; American Primitive Gallery, New York, will delight exhibitors with paintings and sculptures of “Intergalactic Guru Angels,” by L-15, a.k.a. Bernard Schatz; and Galerie Bonheur, St Louis, is featuring works by John Barton, Mary Whitfield, Craig Norton and several paintings by Haitian masters from the 1950s and 1960s.

Additionally, Henry Boxer Gallery, England, will host visiting artist George Widener. Widener, diagnosed with Aspergers Syndrome, is a gifted savant in the domains of calendar calculation, art and memory. Also presented will be visionary artist Donald Pass’s “Resurrection” paintings, recently featured at the American Visionary Art Museum. Aron Packer Gallery, Chicago, is bringing works by 40,000 Murphy whose work is featured on the cover of John Turner and Deborah Klochko’s Outsider photography book, Create and Be Recognized: Photography on the Edge, Chronicle Books, 2004.

Ricco/Maresca Gallery, New York, is featuring African American self-taught masters Bill Traylor, William Hawkins and Sam Doyle. The gallery is also presenting early African American quilts from 1860–1920. J.P. Ritsch-Fisch Galerie, France, celebrates its tenth anniversary with a special exhibit featuring works by Giovanni Battista Podesta, Auguste Forestier, Barbus Müller, A.C.M., Carlo Zinelli, Augustin Lesage, Albert Laudon and more.

Luise Ross Gallery, New York, will exhibit works by French artist Jean-Pierre Nadau, including a large-scale masterpiece, “Grand Canal de Versailles Etc.” The pen and ink drawings of Nadau are obsessively imbued with fine detail and contain a nearly hieroglyphic aesthetic, where innumerable narratives, figures, and graphic components pulsate across the page.

Jennifer Pinto Safian, New York, will present mostly European Art Brut with a rare piece by Croatian artist Domsic, whose known works amount to only about 50, an oil by Gaston Chaissac, and three drawings by Desmoulins that Safian acquired from a psychiatric institution in France. Also expected are works by Polish artist Edmund Monsiel, Italian artist Carlo Zinelli, and English artist Madge Gill.

Galerie St Etienne, New York, is extending its current gallery exhibition, “65th Anniversary, Part II: Self-Taught Artists,” to the Outsider Art Fair and will include Bill Traylor’s “Walking Woman,” circa 1939-40, Camille Bombois’ “Young Girl,” circa 1920, Heinrich Resenbauer’s “Alarm Clocks,” 1997, Ilija Bosilij’s “Moses Creates Water,” 1963, and also works by Henry Darger, Grandma Moses and Josef Karl Rädler.

Fair hours are Friday, noon to 8 pm; Saturday, 11 am to 8 pm; and Sunday, 11 am to 7 pm. Daily admission is $15. The preview will take place 6 to 9 pm on Thursday, January 27. Admission is $100 and includes one readmission to the fair and a catalog. The Puck Building is at the corner of Houston and Lafayette streets in SoHo. For information about Outsider Art Week, 212-265-1040 or www.Sanford Smith.com.

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GEOMETRIC ABSTRACTIONS’ WORKS BETH URDANG w/no cuts

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BOSTON, MASS. — The Beth Urdang Gallery is presenting an exhibition of rare paintings and works on paper by some of the founders and followers of the movement known as “Geometric Abstraction,” an aesthetic that grew out of European and Russian traditions at the turn of the century, but which matured in the United States in the period roughly from 1935–1945.

“Geometric Abstractions of the 1930s and 1940s” is on view through February 5. Drawing from a wide and diverse group of inspirations —among them music, outer space, the machine age, skyscrapers, city streets, even mathematics and scientific exploration — these artists reacted against the prevailing interest in “Social Realism,” and took a more renegade stance. For them, art was about pure form and pure color, and they aligned themselves with their intellectual counterparts abroad and influenced future generations, most notably the “Op” artists, the minimalists and all who shunned representation in favor of jazzy, spiritual paintings, sculpture and works on paper that were only loosely grounded in realty.

Paintings and works on paper by the following artists are included: Emil Bisttram, Ilya Bolotowsky, Ed Garman, Burgoyne Diller,  Theordore Roszak, Ad Reinhardt, Carl Holty, Jo Cain, Rolph Scarlett, John Sennhauser, Abraham Walkowitz and Albert Swinden.

Beth Urdang Gallery is at 14 Newbury Street. For information, 617-0424-8468 or www.BethUrdangGallery.com