Raw Vision 96 by Raw Vision

RAWVISION96 WINTER 2017/18

EDITOR John Maizels DIRECTORS Henry Boxer, Robert Greenberg, Audrey Heckler, Rebecca Hoffberger, Phyllis Kind, Frank Maresca, Marilyn Oshman, Richard Rosenthal, Bob Roth ART EDITOR Maggie Jones Maizels SENIOR EDITOR Edward M. Gómez FEATURES EDITOR Nuala Ernest ASSOCIATE EDITOR Natasha Jaeger ACCOUNTS MANAGER Judith Edwards SUBSCRIPTIONS MANAGER Suzy Daniels CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Michael Bonesteel, Jenifer P. Borum, Roger Cardinal, Ted Degener, Jo Farb Hernandez, Tom Patterson, Colin Rhodes, Charles Russell, Daniel Wojcik PUBLISHED by Raw Vision Ltd Letchmore Heath WD25 8LN, UK tel +44 (0)1923 853175 email info@rawvision.com website www.rawvision.com USA 119 West 72nd Street, #414, New York, NY 10023 (Standard envelopes only) ISSN 0955-1182

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RAW NEWS Outsider events and exhibitions around the world

OBITUARIES M.T. Liggett and Valton Tyler

WILLIAM HAWKINS The ‘Last Suppers’ series

JULIA GÖRANSSON Work from Inuti, Stockholm

MARCUS SCHUBERT Large format environment photographs

OUTLIERS Preview of Washington DC exhibition

FOMA JAREMTSCHUK Powerful work by Soviet Gulag inmate

MARTINE LUSARDY Interview with Director of Halle Saint Pierre, Paris

HOWARD FINSTER Mysterious secret language

ROBERT BANNISTER Drawings of cosmic awareness

RAW REVIEWS Exhibitions and books

GALLERY & MUSEUM GUIDE A round-up of notable venues around the world

COVER IMAGE: William Hawkins, Untitled (Last Supper #6), 1986, enamel with cornmeal and collage on masonite, 24.5 x 48 ins. / 62.2 x 121.9 cm, detail, photo by Matthew Dupont, collection of Robert A. Roth Raw Vision (ISSN 0955-1182) December 2017 is published quarterly (March, June, September, December) by Raw Vision Ltd, PO Box 44, Watford WD25 8LN, UK, and distributed in the USA by UKP Worldwide, 3390 Rand Road, South Plainfield, NJ 07080. Periodicals postage paid at South Plainfield, NJ. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Raw Vision c/o 3390 Rand Road, South Plainfield NJ 07080 and additional mailing offices. Postmaster: send address corrections to Raw Vision c/o UKP Worldwide, 3390 Rand Road, South Plainfield, NJ 07080. USA subscription office: 119 72nd Street, #414, New York, NY 10023. (Standard envelopes only). Raw Vision cannot be held responsible for the return of unsolicited material. The views and opinions expressed here are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of Raw Vision.

AMERICAN FOLK ART MUSEUM VISIONARY AWARD

WORLD’S BEST ART MAGAZINE

UTNE INDEPENDENT PRESS AWARD

MEDAILLE DE LA VILLE DE PARIS

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AUSTRALIA, AUSTRIA, BELGIUM, BRITAIN

THE MUSEUM OF EVERYTHING AT MONA, TASMANIA

EOA CONFERENCE 2018

until April 2, 2018

May 4–6

The Museum of Everything continues its monumental and highly-acclaimed exhibition at Mona in Tasmania. With over 150,000 visitors to date, this is the first major Australian survey of self-taught, vernacular and outsider material. It features almost 2,000 artworks in a thematic art-directed environment, which takes the form of a museum within a museum. Highlights include rooms and installations dedicated to major artists such as Paul Laffoley, Hans Jorg Georgi, Georgiana Houghton, Judith Scott, Henry Darger, Guo Fengyi and Morton Bartlett. A book of the show will be available in 2018, from www.musevery.com and www.shopevery.com. MONA (Museum of Old and New Art) 655 Main Road Berriedale, Hobart Tasmania 7011, AUSTRALIA. mona.net.au

DR. GUISLAIN MUSEUM

OUTSIDE IN AT SOTHEBY’S

until Dec 30, 2020

Jan 11–19

The Cabinets, a collaboration between the Collectie De Stadshof Foundation and the Dr. Guislain Museum presents the work of 30 outsider artists. DR. GUISLAIN MUSEUM Jozef Guislainstraat 43, 9000 Gent, Belgium www.museumdrguislain.be

Discover the journey of award-winning charity Outside In and the artists it supports in a groundbreaking exhibition at London’s Sotheby’s. Outside In: Journeys brings together the diverse work of a number of artists involved with Outside In, which provides a platform for artists who find it difficult to access the art world due to health, disability, social circumstances or isolation. SOTHEBY’S, 34–35 New Bond Street, London W1A 2AA, UK www.outsidein.org.uk, www.sothebys.com

Alfred Hrdlicka

Adama Diakhaté

Manuel Bonifacio

GALERIE GUGGING until Feb 14

Following the exhibition and catalogue, navratil’s artist guest book.!,which took place at museum gugging in 2015, artworks from the psychiatrist’s artist guest book are now exhibited. GALERIE GUGGING Am Campus 2, A-3400 Maria Gugging, AUSTRIA. www.gugging.com

In May 2018, Outside In will host the European Outsider Art Association Conference at Pallant House Gallery, Chichester, celebrating the work of artists and sharing best practice in the field through presentations, key note speeches and workshops by artists, practitioners and academics. Activities will include visits to Bethlem Gallery and ActionSpace studios in London; an event at the Gallery of Everything; and a chance to explore environments in London and nearby Brighton. www.outsidein.org.uk

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ICELAND, ITALY, SLOVENIA, SWITZERLAND

COLLECTION DE L’ART BRUT

until Feb 11

until Apr 29

Co+Existence of Four Tales at Gallery of Naive Artists Trebnje presents contemporary self-taught art by four very different Slovenian artists: Borut Holland, Samo, Darja Štefančič and Janez Štros. TREBNJE GALLERY OF NAIVE ARTISTS (Galerija likovnih samorastnikov Trebnje), Goliev trg 1, 8210 Trebnje, SLOVENIA www.ciktrebnje.si

Curated by Gustavo Giacosa, CORPS features 300 drawings, paintings, photos and sculptures, and illustrates the multiple ways in which art brut can represent the human body. Works by Ernst Kolb will be exhibited from Feb 9 through June 17. COLLECTION DE L’ART BRUT, Av. des Bergières 11, 1004 Lausanne, SWITZERLAND www.artbrut.ch

Giovanni Galli

The Icelandic Folk and Outsider Art Museum exhibits work by more than 300 artists, dating from the mid 19th century to the present. The museum also collaborates with Art Without Borders, an annual art festival for people with disabilities. This year saw works by Friðrik Hansen exhibited at the museum with his sawn-and-painted wooden sculptures and paintings. THE ICELANDIC FOLK AND OUTSIDER ART MUSEUM, Safnasafnið, Svalbarðsströnd, 601 Akureyri, Sími: 461 4066, ICELAND www.safnasafnid.is

MUSEUM IM LAGERHAUS

Jan 11–28

until Mar 4

Curated by Linda Kaiser, Imaginary Maps. Representations of (Im)Possible Worlds presents fantastic maps created by outsider artists such as Kuffjca Cozma, Evelyne Postic, Davide Mansueto Raggio and Julia Sisi. PALAZZO DUCALE Piazza Matteotti 9 – Genova, ITALY www.palazzoducale.genova.it

Museum im Lagerhaus present Swiss works from the Prinzhorn Collection in Heidelberg. Includes work by Heinrich Anton Müller, Adolf Wölfli and Karl Maximilian Wür tenberger. Never before have the ceramic sculptures of Wür tenberger from Lake Constance been juxtaposed with his drawings from the psychiatric hospital. MUSEUM IM LAGERHAUS, Davidstrasse 44, CH-9000 St. Gallen, SWITZERLAND www.museumimlagerhaus.ch

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Joškin Šiljan

Else Blankenhorn

IMAGINARY MAPS

until Jan 31

Dan Miller

LANGUAGE IN VISUAL ART

Shadow of the Words: Sign, language. Silences is a project curated by Luciano Tellaroli on the language trend in visual art with over 60 works by a wide range of artists. The show takes place in three locations in Milan: Carte Scoperte, Maroncelli 12 and Casa dell’Arte Spagna Bellora. www.carte-scoperte.com www.maroncelli12.it

SLOVENIAN OUTSIDERS

Borut Holland

Ragnar Bjarnason

THE ICELANDIC FOLK AND OUTSIDER ART MUSEUM

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USA

TREASURES OF NATIVE AMERICA

AMERICAN FOLK ART MUSEUM’S NEW EXHIBITION SPACE

photo: American Folk Art Museum

Hopi katsinam, early 1950s

until Apr 29

Treasures of Native America: Selections from the Drs Norman and Gilda Greenberg Gift includes silver and turquoise jewellery, Navajo weavings, Hopi katsinam, Apache basketry, Pueblo pottery and Northwest Coast masks. Together, they offer a glimpse into the riches of the Greenberg Collection, a major recent donation to the Gregg Museum. Gregg Museum of Art & Design NC State University, 1903 Hillsborough Street Raleigh, NC 27607. www.gregg.arts.ncsu.edu

The American Folk Art Museum has opened a satellite space that will allow it to present exhibitions culled from its large, diverse permanent collection, which normally is not on view. Named after one of its recent, critically acclaimed exhibitions, AFAM's new SelfTaught Genius Gallery is located in Long Island City, in the borough of Queens, not far from a subway station. The free-admission space’s inaugural show, including classic art and objects from the museum’s holdings, puts the new venue firmly on the map of a district that boasts an increasing number of visual-art outposts. The show includes such emblematic works as Edward Hicks’s oil painting, The Peaceable Kingdom (1829–31), and Lonnie Holley’s mixed-media assemblage, Don’t Go Crossing My Fence (1994). AMERICAN FOLK ART MUSEUM, SELF-TAUGHT GENIUS GALLERY 47–29 32nd Place, Long Island City (Queens), New York www.folkartmuseum.org

left to right: Audrey B. Heckler, Rebecca Alban Hoffberger, AFAM executive director Anne-Imelda Radice

AFAM’S 2017 VISIONARY AWARD

until Jan 31

INDONESIAN SHADOW PUPPETS

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An intimate exhibition featuring 30 Indonesian puppets depicting heroes and heroines, demons and pranksters featured in the great Hindu epics, the Mahabharata and Ramayana, as well as local gods and mythical subjects. MINGEI INTERNATIONAL MUSEUM, Balboa Park, Plaza de Panama, 1439 El Prado, San Diego, CA 92101 https://mingei.org

Denise Beaudet

Shadow Puppet, Tree of Life (Kayon or Gunungan)

until Mar 18

New York’s American Folk Art Museum has honoured Rebecca Alban Hoffberger, the founder, director and principal curator of the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore, Maryland, with its 2017 Visionary Award. Celebrated for her imaginative approaches to arts administration and exhibition-making, and her dedication to the work and ideas of self-taught artists, Hoffberger noted that “using their art to tell human stories has the power to resonate and heal.” AFAM’s award is supported by the museum's longtime trustee and benefactor, Audrey B. Heckler. www.folkartmuseum.org 12

GALLERY IN THE WOODS

The Roots To Resistance features 13 portraits of women activists designed to inspire women from all walks of life, each 4 x 8 ft, painted by Denise Beaudet. The exhibit is connected to the organisations that these women have founded and influenced, and all proceeds go to them. Postcards of these images and small posters are available free for the asking, and are being sent around the world. GALLERY IN THE WOODS 145 Main Street, Brattleboro, VT 05301 www.galleryinthewoods.com www.denisebeaudet.com invisible_earth@yahoo.com

WILLIAM HAWKINS: THE LAST SUPPERS A deep dive into a beloved American artistâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s best-known series SUSAN MITCHELL CRAWLEY

opposite Last Supper, 1986, enamel with cornmeal and collage on plywood, 48 x 48 ins. / 121.9 x 121.9 cm, courtesy of The Museum of Everything

below Last Supper #6, 1986, enamel with cornmeal and collage on Masonite, 24.5 x 48 ins. / 62.2 x 121.9 cm, collection of Robert A. Roth

most of his paintings. Growing up on his familyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s prosperous horse-breeding farm, he received little formal schooling. Instead, he broke horses, hunted and trapped, and absorbed the natural beauty of the rolling hills. After he moved to Columbus at the age of 21, he came to appreciate the man-made beauty of his adopted city, which he immortalised in many architectural paintings. Hawkins was raised in a typically Southern, churchgoing Protestant family. His early Christianity metamorphosed over time into a devout heterodoxy which, he claimed, encompassed all Protestant belief systems yet treated biblical pronouncements with skepticism. (1) After moving to Columbus, he stopped attending church regularly. Religious subject matter made up a small proportion of his output, which seems to have been determined primarily by what he thought would sell best. Before he caught the attention of the art

striking feature of William Hawkinsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; (1895â&#x20AC;&#x201C;1990) oeuvre is that he so consistently worked in series. During the almost 20 years in which he was most artistically active, he created several versions of favourite themes, including animal paintings such as his Tasmanian Tiger, Eagle and Snake and Rhinoceros; action scenes, such as Alligator and Lovers, Red Dog Running and Buffalo Hunter; and architecture, such as the Neil House Hotel, the Atlas Building and the Huntington Bank. Yet the subject he seems to have returned to most often lay in an area in which he was not prolific: religion. For, of the (very roughly) 25 religious-themed works Hawkins completed, no less than nine were versions of the Last Supper. Hawkins spent his adult life in Columbus, the state capital of Ohio, in the Midwestern United States. His roots were about 200 miles from there, in late nineteenthcentury Kentucky, as he declared in a bold signature on

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world, he painted at least three versions of Moses and the Ten Commandments; later, he painted three versions of Jerusalem of the Bible, in which biblical subject matter intersected with architectural landscape. And more than once he painted the Adoration of the Magi and the Nativity, along with single versions of a few other themes. In 1984, he turned his attention to a piece of iconography that would come to be intimately associated with him and would display most of the traits and innovations that defined his development as an artist. Over the next four years, Hawkins would create nine variations of the Last Supper, all of them remarkably diverse and imaginative. Only eight of Hawkinsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; nine Last Suppers are 18

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numbered. One, now in the collection of the Museum of Everything, did not pass through his New York gallery, Ricco/Maresca, which maintained the numbering scheme, and remains unnumbered. Nor does there appear to have ever been a painting designated Last Supper #8. In this article, all but Last Supper #3 are shown. Formerly in the collection of Geoffrey Holder and Carmen de Lavallade, Last Supper #3 was sold at auction in 1995 to a European collector, and its current whereabouts are unknown â&#x20AC;&#x201C; but the format, palette and media are most like those of Last Supper #4. The Last Supper, according to the Gospels, was the final meal Christ shared with his disciples before his Crucifixion, during which he revealed that his life was to be sacrificed for the remission of human sin. During that

left Last Supper #1, 1984, enamel on particleboard, 38 x 52 ins. / 96.5 x 132 cm, private collection below William Hawkins, 1982, Columbus, Ohio photo: Roger Ricco

meal, Christ identified bread with his body and wine with his blood, then instructed his disciples to eat and drink, thereby instituting the ceremony that became the sacrament of Communion in the Christian church. As anyone can see, the source of Hawkins’ Last Suppers series was Leonardo da Vinci’s famous mural, completed in 1498 for the refectory of the convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan. Or was it? In the early 1980s, Hawkins brought home a discarded artwork he had retrieved from someone’s trash. It was a painting on velvet of the Last Supper by an unknown artist, in which Christ and the disciples were all presented as black men. Both Hawkins’ biographer, the artist and art historian Gary Schwindler, and his New York

dealer, Roger Ricco, remember this painting and believe it to have been the inspiration – and probably the model – for Hawkins’ Last Suppers series. (2) At first glance, the artist appears to have derived his velvet painting entirely from the Leonardo. All the familiar elements are there: the long table, empty on the near side, stretched across the wide composition; Christ in the centre before a brightly lit doorway; the twelve disciples grouped in threes. Windows and tapestries, descended from Leonardo’s original, made their way through the velvet painting and into Hawkins’ series as rectangles of colour in Last Supper #1 and Last Supper #3, and then as flatly rendered architectural elements in the subsequent versions. But a closer look at the velvet painting suggests that its creator drew from another RAW VISION 96

JULIA GÖRANSSON An artist with flow and power from Inuti studios in Stockholm EVA OLOFSSON

ulia Göransson is 27 years old and works at Inuti Ateljé in Stockholm, where people who have intellectual disabilities or are on the autistic spectrum make art. Her art is bold and decisive, much like she herself is. Each morning at Inuti, she goes through the daily newspaper, reading the pictures in her own way and studying the words. Sometimes she copies letters, words or sentences, combining them with drawings made from the pictures. The way that she brings these aspects together gives them new meaning that often has a surprising, sharp edge. Over the years, Göransson has been interested in different subjects. One was the human body (both outside and inside), and she studied nude paintings in books. At first she was surprised to see them, and asked if it was really alright to paint naked people, then she started to copy historical paintings with nudes in them, before painting her own nudes and telling stories about them. She studied anatomy via medical drawings and a

real skeleton, and after many sketches made her own version of an anatomical model of the contents of a human torso with all the internal organs. It was exhibited in 2013 at Sofiero Castle in Helsingborg, Sweden. Göransson also painted skeletons with extra bones, filling a large-format book that was shown in an exhibition in Japan in spring 2016. When she first started coming to the Inuti studio seven years ago, Göransson had a strong desire to make a dress with a long, wide skirt. She had fully visualised the complete design. After being shown how to use the sewing machine and cut patterns, she made a beautiful, collage-like pattern by stitching small pieces of printed cotton on to the white material. Finally, she added a plastic hoop to the hem, to hold the material out, and wore it proudly at the Inuti annual party. Her interests have also included Japanese figures, such as sumo wrestlers, geisha and samurai. A productive artist, she has been known to make over 20 charcoal

Untitled, 2016, crayon and pencil on paper, 23.6 x 16.5 ins. / 60 x 42 cm

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Julia Göransson, 2010, in a cotton dress of her own design and making

drawings in a single day and has become known as the most prolific user of paper in the studio. Recently, Göransson has been working with ceramics, decorating bowls and cups with different ornaments that change in a never-ceasing flow. Studio staff cast a few simple forms in clay – two round pots and a square one. She stirs and pours with tremendous energy, and often some pots are broken in the process, but Göransson will find a new interesting form, or glue the pieces together to create something new, such as a city of towers and domes. She also works with papier mâché, sticking paper together with water, glue or paint, then sculpting court ladies, a gigantic pair of red high heels, animals, a rollercoaster, or Moomin characters from her favourite stories. In the summer, Göransson loves to go to the Gröna Lund amusement park in Stockholm and ride rollercoasters. She is fearless when it comes to speed or height and laughs, happily, as fellow riders scream. She

Untitled, 2016, crayon and pencil on paper, 16.5 x 11.8 ins. / 42 x 30 cm

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Untitled, 2016, charcoal and crayon on paper, 23.6 x 16.5 ins. / 60 x 42 cm

also loves to fly in airplanes, though she has not reacted well to the security checks: on an Inuti-arranged trip to Finland, she told the guards to “fuck off” when they wanted to search her. She is a powerful woman with high self-esteem, and in the end they let her through without the search. There is a long tradition of strong women in Sweden. Queen Christina (1626–1689) is one example, as are the fictional characters Pippi Longstocking, from the children’s book series, and Lisbeth Salander, from the book series that includes The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. Göransson continues the tradition. One morning, Göransson told us that a thief had tried to break in through her bedroom window in the night. We were alarmed and asked if she had been scared. Göransson replied, “No, why? I just closed the window, but the thief was screaming because her fingers were still on the windowsill.” On the trip to Finland, it was midsummer and beautiful weather with very short nights where the sky hardly got dark at all. We only slept for a few hours before the opening of the exhibition. Despite everyone’s fatigue, and that Göransson doesn’t always like meeting new people, at her own exhibition it was no problem at all and she proudly presented her work, wearing a long dress. At Inuti there is the strong belief that it all artists should have a rich life with many experiences – that they should travel and see new landscapes and cultures, have opportunities to meet new people, be influenced by other artists and exhibitions, and take part in society as much as possible. With Inuti, Göransson has been on

organised trips to rural parts of Sweden and developed a love of cooking colourful food, heavily spiked with garlic and ginger. A view is often put forward that the most interesting artists lived long ago in isolation, or neglected in an institution, working more or less secretly, using leftover materials and scraps of found paper. The implication is that a more tragic life and history creates more interesting art. However, at Inuti, the different ways that the artists who work in the studios perceive the world shows through in their work no matter how involved they may or may not be in society. Contrary to the isolated outsider trope, their artwork is a rich source for all of us to understand the diversity of the human mind through artistic expression and to encounter new ideas and alternative ways of looking at what is happening in the world today. Göransson has participated in many exhibitions in Sweden, Finland, Estonia and Japan so far. Inuti started a cooperation together with Japanese art brut that will be concluded with an exhibition at Edsvik Konsthall, the Stockholm art gallery, in 2018, to celebrate 150 years of diplomatic ties between Sweden and Japan. There, we will show some historic Swedish artists together with, of course, some very-much-alive artists from our Inuti studios in Stockholm.

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Eva Olofsson is mentor at the Foundation Inuti, which has four studios in the centre of Stockholm that run daily activities for artistically-talented individuals with intellectual disabilities and individuals within the autism spectrum. www.inuti.se

Untitled, 2016, charcoal and crayon on paper, 23.6 x 16.5 ins. / 60 x 42 cm

Untitled, 2016, crayon and pencil on paper, 16.5 x 11.8 ins. / 42 x 30 cm

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PIONEER OF DOCUMENTATION One of the early photographers of outsider art environments discusses his work and experiences MARCUS SCHUBERT

or those unfamiliar with the quality of artwork made by what has become known in contemporary parlance as an “outsider”, once seen it is remembered. Viewers are confronted with the disquieting aspect of a raw urgency and unrelenting psychological imperative that seems to drive the creative process. What specifically defines an outsider artist remains the subject of heated debate and a daunting exercise concerning the politics of aesthetic

The Giants, Palais Idéal, Hauterives, France, (Ferdinand Cheval), 1987

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convention and the social history of art. However, it is generally agreed the artwork of an outsider tends to be made without notable training. An individual spontaneously and obsessively begins to develop a significant body of work separate from fashionable mainstream trends. In the realm of outsider art, creations are made without apparent availability, desire, or access to cultural integration and the current language of art. (1)

Portrait of Bodan Litnianski, Le Jardin de Coquillage, Chauny, France, 1988

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Portrait of W. C. Rice in the Miracle Cross Garden, Pratville, Alabama, 1988

Howard Finsterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s shed, Paradise Garden, Pennville, Georgia, 1986

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My focus of my interest in outsider art and how that relates to photography has been mainly upon exterior three-dimensional works of sculpture and architecture: visionary environments. Turning to the genre of art brut and outsider art as a photographic exploration became a direct response to what I realised was lacking in my formal art education, a response that was as much a reevaluation of institutional convention as it was an addendum to my own understanding of what art making was, and could be – something intuitive, urgent and raw, operating outside of institutional frameworks or sanctioning. At a time in the art world when fleeting trends, appropriation and derivative sourcing for inspiration too often had a strangle-hold on the creative process, paying homage to unbridled original ideas and new aesthetic content was more valuable than ever. My attraction to this form was to the scale of the projects and long-term dedication to them by self-taught builders; the ongoing commitment to their spontaneous organic creation, a piece of architecture or series of

exterior sculptures – where structure and detail were voiced with a unique aesthetic sensibility and visual language. I was attracted, too, by the economy of means, routinely incorporating found materials, and how the process of gathering and assembling was often explained by the artist in autobiographical terms. Indeed, storytelling and philosophising were often key components to the experience of a visit. Meeting these individuals while in their environment was always a highlight for me: getting a personal tour of Vollis Simpson’s workshop, where he crafted countless gigantic whirligigs; listening to W. C. Rice preaching hell and damnation of sexual obsession while standing in his Miracle Cross Garden; standing in awe of Billy Lemming as he explained the health benefits of electricity while in the throes of selfadministered electroshock therapy; discussing the earthly manifestations of God and heaven with Howard Finster; or the philosophy of beauty in found objects with Bodan Litniansky while walking through his Jardin de Coquillage.

Portrait of Billy Lemming, Trion, Georgia, 1988

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REAPPRAISING THE “OUTLIERS” A new exhibition in Washington, DC, will examine the history of modern artists and modern-art museums’ interest in the creations of talented autodidacts EDWARD M. GÓMEZ

n recent years, an increasing number of galleries specialising in art produced by “professional”, schooled modern and contemporary art-makers have begun showing the creations of their self-taught peers. Similarly, some high-profile exhibitions at museums or other venues, primarily in the United States and Europe, have emphatically brought together works made by academically trained artists and those whose works have been classified as art brut, outsider art, or self-taught art. For aficionados of art forms in those latter, related categories who consider themselves aesthetic purists, seeing such works displayed alongside those of “professional” artists in a way that seems to downplay or ignore the distinctions between them may seem curious. Is the goal of such presentations to validate the accomplishments of self-taught art-makers by placing them near “professional” artists’ works or maybe even to blur or dissolve any presumed category border between them? With these concerns providing something of a backdrop and with other related themes in mind, “Outliers and American Vanguard Art”, a well-researched, insightful exhibition that will open on January 28, 2018, in the East Building of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, is sure to illuminate certain aesthetic and historical issues in the ongoing discussion of the relationship between the work of schooled and unschooled artists. (The exhibition will travel on to the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, Georgia, and then to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in California.) Organised by Lynne Cooke, the National Gallery of Art’s senior curator of special projects in modern art, “Outliers” will investigate how modern and contemporary artists and art institutions in the United States regarded, presented, and sometimes embraced the work of selftaught artists from the early decades of the twentieth century through more recent times. The exhibition will argue that interest in – or even a certain fascination with – the ideas, art-making techniques and remarkable creations of self-taught artists on the part of their schooled 36

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counterparts is nothing new, and that the history of this lively interaction between the creative expressions of trained and untrained art-makers is a subject that has been forgotten or overlooked. “Outliers” will feature roughly 250 works of art produced by both schooled and unschooled artists, including, among others, William Edmondson, Henry Darger, Lonnie Holley, Sister Gertrude Morgan, Horace Pippin, Martín Ramírez, Judith Scott, Charles Sheeler, Matt Mullican, Betye Saar and Cindy Sherman. Looking specifically at the activities of American artists and institutions, it will highlight three periods during which the ideas and aesthetics of modernist avant-garde artists and outsiders intersected, and show how their encounters helped give rise to what Cooke refers to as “new paradigms based on inclusion, integration, and assimilation” between the two artistic camps. In an interview at the National Gallery of Art, Cooke explained that she has used the term “outliers” to refer to the self-taught artists whose works will be featured in the exhibition because, “in the modernist paradigm, structured around a centre that has agency and a periphery that does not, it’s a one-way street.” However, she added, “Nowadays the paradigm has changed. Today we can recognise the self-taught artist as an outlier – as someone who is situated at a distance from the aggregate or norm, as opposed to a centre-periphery relationship. Instead, outliers are related in terms of shifting trajectories that might bring them nearer to or farther from this norm, in terms they may negotiate or seek to define.” Cooke believes that the outliers of our time are not only self-taught artists but also individuals who are reshaping their relationships with what is “normal” in different ways and on their own terms in relation to race, gender, sexuality, and personal identity. In the exhibition’s catalogue, Cooke writes that “being at variance with the norm” can lead an individual to fashion or discover a “position of strength”, that is, “a place negotiated or sought out rather than predetermined and fixed.” The three art-historical moments “Outliers” examines

left Lynne Cooke, a curator at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, with Carousel Horse by George Constantine, c.1939, photo by National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

below Joseph Yoakum, Briar Head Mtn of National Park Range of Bryce Canyon National Park near Hatch, Utah U.S.A., c. 1969, ballpoint pen and coloured pencil, 20 × 24 ins. / 50.8 × 60.7 cm, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, gift of the Collectors Committee and the Donald and Nancy de Laski Fund

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above: Lonnie Holley, The Boneheaded Serpent at the Cross (It Wasn't Luck), 1996, found metal, bones, dried flowers, overall: 21 x 18 x 9 ins. / 53.34 x 45.72 x 22.86 cm, Souls Grown Deep Foundation from the William S. Arnett Collection top right: James “Son Ford” Thomas, Untitled, 1988, unfired clay, paint, human teeth, rocks, 6.75 x 4.5 x 7 ins. / 17.15 x 11.43 x 17.78 cm, Souls Grown Deep Foundation from the William S. Arnett Collection right: William Edmondson, Angel, 1931, limestone, overall: 16.5 x 5.5 x 22 ins. / 41.91 x 13.97 x 55.88 cm, Robert M. Greenberg Collection

span the periods from 1924 to 1943, from 1968 to 1992, and from 1998 through 2013. During each one, Cooke’s research shows, waves of social, political, and cultural upheaval in the United States stimulated artistic interchanges that defied or led to the elimination of certain traditional, long-standing hierarchies. (Examples: the feminist movement and sexual revolution of the 1960s and 1970s, which forcefully challenged long-entrenched, male-privileged power structures.) Cooke looked back on her time at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid, Spain, where she served as a curator several years ago. There, after working on exhibitions of the work of Ramírez (with guest curator Brooke Davis Anderson) and James Castle, and coorganising with the German contemporary artist Rosemarie Trockel a show featuring works by both trained 38

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and self-taught artists, she began thinking about certain questions. Cooke recalled, “I thought, ‘What gets shown today in a museum of modern and contemporary art? Where are the borders? What are the margins?’ I started to think about this in terms of what is seen as acceptable or inappropriate – by curators, audiences, and institutions themselves. One of these areas is that of work made by self-taught, uncredentialed artists.” However, she pointed out, at certain times in the past, “that wasn’t the case”; in fact, she noted, among certain artists and in the programming of certain American museums “there was a porousness and reciprocity” in the way in which artworks made by schooled modern artists and by autodidacts was examined and appreciated. For example, the Precisionist painter-photographer Charles

above Marsden Hartley, Adelard the Drowned, Master of the "Phantom” , c. 1938–39, oil on board, 28 × 22 ins. / 71.12 × 55.88 cm, Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum at the University of Minnesota, bequest of Hudson D. Walker from the Ione and Hudson D. Walker Collection

right Sister Gertrude Morgan, Untitled (Revelation 7. Chap.), c. 1965–70, paint on wood, overall: 32.36 x 15.36 ins. / 82.23 x 39.05 cm, courtesy of The Museum of Everything

Sheeler (1883–1965), who had been in Paris as Cubism emerged in the early twentieth century, shared his enthusiasm for folk and vernacular art forms with the curatorial staff at New York’s Museum of Modern Art (which was founded in 1929; its first director was Alfred H. Barr, Jr). Cooke said that the exhibitions she developed at the Reina Sofía made her consider “whose work is shown in museums and why, and also how this fits into the discourse of our current moment about greater inclusiveness and diversity” in the cultural arena, education, the workplace, and other sectors of society. She noted that, today, these are urgent topics, even “in the contemporary-art world,” but that in the more specialised outsider-art field, “maybe discussion of these issues of dissolving long-standing fixed categories has only begun to take place.” Thus, “Outliers” will bring together works by trained

and self-taught artists, not explicitly to equate them or to allow the former to help aesthetically legitimise or validate the latter (as, in the eyes of numerous observers, the main exhibition at the 2013 Venice Biennale appeared to do), but rather, as Cooke noted, to provoke a “more circumscribed conversation between the works on view.” Focusing on the period from 1924 to 1943, the first section of the exhibition will look at how such American modern artists as Sheeler and Yasuo Kuniyoshi (1889-1953) loaned examples of historic folk art from their personal collections to “Early American Art”, a 1924 show at the Whitney Studio Club in New York (later the Whitney Museum of American Art). In the “Outliers” catalogue, Cooke writes, “[A]cross the century, professionally trained artists would pave the way by ‘discovering’ or recovering art by their unschooled counterparts. Becoming its most RAW VISION 96

THE VISIONARY SOVIET REVELATIONS OF FOMA JAREMTSCHUK COLIN RHODES

Untitled, c.1958, ink on found paper, 15 x 10.2 ins. / 38 x 26 cm

oma Jaremtschuk spent most of his life in the Soviet Gulag. He was at first interned in a Siberian labour camp, and subsequently in psychiatric facilities, where he died in 1986. Some time in the 1950s and early 1960s, while under the care of Professor Mikhail Kutanin, Head of the Saratov Psychiatric Clinic, Jaremtschuk produced a remarkable body of drawings. Though completely untrained and using only the simplest of materials, he created a pictorial universe that is utterly compelling; at once horrific and a thing of terrible beauty. His cast of characters include large female guards and nurses, deformed doctors and orderlies, and a vast array 42

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of grotesque people and creatures that are hybrids of human, animal and machine. Often, these images are punctuated with fragments of angry and accusatory text that characteristically tumble into a kind of indistinct textual mumble, or develop into little rhymes, the charming simplicity of which jars with profane content. We know very little about the artist from the official record. He was born in a remote Siberian village in 1907, completed only three grades in a rural primary school, and in 1936 he was arrested and sent to a camp. It is likely that he was one of the more than two million kulaks (peasants) who were accused, in dubious circumstances,

Untitled, c.1960, ink on found card, 12.6 x 16.9 ins. / 32 x 43 cm

of opposing Soviet policy and who suffered a similar fate in that decade. Jaremtschuk’s drawings speak eloquently of the appalling experience of life in the camps, as endured by him and more than 20 million other zeks (prisoners in labour camps) over half a century. Though his images regularly spill over into surreal fantasy, they are nevertheless also chillingly realistic reports. Conditions in labour camps were extraordinarily harsh. Prisoners had no humanity or individuality. They were a workforce commodity who were worthless unless they were making a profit for the state. Writing in 1938, the procurator of the USSR, Andrei Vishinsky observed

that, “Among the prisoners there are some so ragged and lice-ridden that they pose a sanitary danger to the rest. These prisoners have deteriorated to the point of losing any resemblance to human beings. Lacking food ... they collect orts [refuse] and, according to some prisoners, eat rats and dogs.” (1) People like this appear time and again in drawings by Jaremtschuk. In one picture, a large female guard is covered with massive bed bugs and ticks. They seem to feed on the awesome power she appears to have gained from Communist Party membership – part of the text on the drawing reads, “the woman felt the taste of force – RAW VISION 96

Untitled, c.1955, ink on found paper, 19.7 x 14.2 ins. / 50 x 36 cm

Untitled, c.1950, ink on found paper, 18.9 x 14.2 ins. / 48 x 36 cm

mighty communist force you can eat lard and piss on everyone.” Similarly, there is an awful poignancy in an image of a concertina-playing zek and a naked man, standing with his face raised to the sky. Both cling to their humanity, seemingly oblivious to the figures reduced to dog-like creatures that gather around them. In addition to becoming animalised, Jaremtschuk’s characters are often opened up like medical illustrations, so that viewers (the authorities, everyone) can see everything that is going on in the normally private interior of the body, both physically and in their thoughts. Technology, animals, fish and fungal growths participate in this invasive tearing open of bodies that somehow still cling to life. The artist’s likeness also appears in many drawings. In one he wears a Soviet cap and is suspended inside a great, grotesque maternal figure. In another he crouches, foetus-like in the exposed interior of a huge skull. Like some infernal womb, the skull holds the Jaremtschuk figure, and forces on it life-preserving sustenance. The presence of an iron-framed bed signifies a hospital environment, since ordinary beds in the camps were characteristically roughly made wooden bunks, or sploshnye nary (communal sleeping shelfs). In another we find him hiding under a bench in some strange washroom-cum-laboratory from a huge hybrid creature that appears to have escaped from an adjacent cupboard. It threatens a figure hanging upside down from laundry drying on a hanger. Another figure sits in a large jar, safe from the monster, perhaps, but trapped within his glass container.

It is impossible to say when Jaremtschuk descended into psychosis, but it is clear that by the time he came to make these drawings he had transitioned to what the psychiatrist R.D. Laing called, “a psychotic way of being-inthe-world.” (2) It is likely that the trauma of life in the camps, including dehumanising experiences that he would commonly have endured, as well as witnessing much worse, coupled with an authoritarian system that said it could see into the very souls of its subjects, would have led to a pronounced sense of vulnerability to his psychological as well as his physical being. The extent of the dehumanising of people in Jaremtschuk’s drawings is surely heavily influenced by the brutal way zeks were habitually treated. Applebaum tells us, “Even without outright sadism, the unthinking cruelty of guards, who treated their prisoners as domestic animals, led to much misery.” (3) And, as one prisoner wrote, “The whole process of the disintegration of the personality took place before the eyes of everyone in the cell. A man could not hide himself here for an instant; even his bowels had to be moved in the open toilet, situated right in the room. He who wanted to weep, wept before everyone.” (4) It is also easy to see in the artist’s work his daily experience of those who had reached the final stages of their lives, the so-called gavnoedy (shiteaters), or dokhodyagi (usually translated as “goners”). Applebaum’s account, drawn from those of survivors, could almost be a description of any number of Jaremtschuk’s drawings: “In the final stages of starvation, the dokhodyagi took on a bizarre and inhuman

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Untitled,Â c.1955, ink on found paper, 17 x 7.9 ins. / 45 x 20 cm

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MARTINE LUSARDY AND HALLE SAINT PIERRE The Director of one of Europe’s premier locations for art brut and outsider art talks to Raw Vision’s editor, John Maizels

Martine Lusardy at Halle Saint Pierre, May 2017

What year did you first arrive at Halle Saint Pierre? Originally it was a museum of naive art, what was it like when you first arrived? Before I arrived in 1994, it was a museum that housed two separate entities: a naive art collection and a children's museum. The museum for children had exhausted its dynamics and was no longer a forerunner, and the collection of naive art was very poor, far behind the Charlotte Zander Collection in Germany or the Museum Anatole Jakovsky in Nice. 48

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How did you change Halle Saint Pierre from a naive art museum to a centre for art brut? It was necessary to give a real cultural project to Halle Saint Pierre, which was missing from the beginning. The first exhibition, “Art Brut & Cie: The Hidden face of Contemporary Art”, was the founding stone of this project. It defined its main lines and its spirit. This oneyear exhibition brought, for the first time, six museums together in one: five major collections of the second generation of art brut around Lausanne’s mother

Laurence Maidenbaum and Pascal Hecker, managers of the world’s largest outsider art bookstore (below)

collection. In other words, the exhibition was of such great significance in France, where mainstream events dedicated to art brut were so rare, that it had a huge impact. Over that year, Halle Saint Pierre became the goto place for outsider art, with conferences, film festivals, meetings, exhibitions and, above all, its bookshop: a very lively place where people met, exchanged, spoke, and expressed their agreement – or disagreement. I could easily draw a conclusion as to the future of Halle Saint Pierre. I had my cultural project: art brut and outsider art. I had the spirit: to make the place alive. What influence did Laurent Danchin have on the curation of art brut and outsider art exhibitions? Laurent used to visit Halle Saint Pierre from the beginning, as he was interested in some of our exhibitions such as “Fantastic Architectures”, or “From

Rousseau to Demonchy”, co-curated by Roger Cardinal, which presented the best naive art from international collections. He forged strong links with Laurence Maidenbaum and Pascal Hecker, who were in charge of the bookshop. They introduced me to Laurent with the idea that he could be a good advisor. He became the main curator of “Art Brut & Cie”. Laurent not only knew the history of art brut, from its prehistory to its current developments, he also made outsider art his spiritual family and built very personal and human ties with every person who shared his passion. His thoughts and his passion were always in motion. The Halle Saint Pierre became his favourite place to share his knowledge and discoveries. He co-curated nearly ten exhibitions, including the one dedicated to his friend Chomo. Art brut, almost without exception, is an art whose authors relate not to high culture but to popular culture. However, the RAW VISION 96

McKendree Long, Vision of the Sixth Angel, 1967, oil on canvas, 42 x 56 ins. / 106.7 x 142.2 cm, Hardy P. Graham and Lee G. Morphis Collection

discoverers and mediators are always people belonging to the other, “high” culture: artists, writers, journalists, psychiatrists (Prinzhorn, Klee, Breton, Dubuffet or Malraux in the past century). Art brut and outsider art are therefore essentially the notions of scholars, and without the active and militant recognition of a very sophisticated and intellectual painter like Jean Dubuffet, the type of creations they represent would never have gone beyond, at best, a purely local outreach. We shared Laurent’s determination to uphold this reality without concern for intellectual hierarchy, in order to prevent a caste of specialists from taking ownership of art brut to make it a dehumanised scientific subject. Halle Saint Pierre is Europe’s premier location for large exhibitions of outsider art. How do you see its influence having developed over the years? How do you see its position in the field of outsider art ? The fact that we do not have a permanent collection like the other museums forced us to organise only temporary exhibitions and therefore to be always active in a prospective view. The fundamental lines on which I based the conception and setting-up of exhibitions are still applicable today: • To highlight the vast range of marginal art with no hierarchy, but in determining their relationship to the art mainstream. • To establish links with the more scholarly forms of creation. 50

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• To question deep issues of creation. • To maintain the specificity of art brut and outsider art in contemporary art. • To remain committed to various forms of living creation. The spirit behind all our activities can be stated as “building bridges”. Bridges between the heritage of Dubuffet’s thoughts and ongoing issues and practices arising in the field. Bridges within or between cultures. Bridges between representatives of various disciplines (writers, philosophers, psychoanalysts, psychiatrists, sociologists). Bridges between artists, institutions, collectors, audiences. Bridges that are yet to be imagined. To build bridges expresses the freedom of a living thought. After “Art Brut & Cie”, we immediately felt the need to see what was happening outside our borders. Not only to discover works created in other cultural backgrounds but also to experience other schools of thought, value systems and spiritual beliefs without which we would miss what outsider art is. “Outsider and Folk Art: the Chicago Collections” in 1998/99 reinforced our project and carried it to an international level. So, next to thematic or monographic exhibitions, we have continued with our programme of exhibitions devoted to the outsider art of others countries like Great Britain, Belgium, Italy, Japan, Australia, the Czech Republic, Brazil and the Balkans. They all have been

Joe Coleman, In the Realms of the Unreal: Henry Darger, 1998, acrylic on canvas, 28 x 33.2 ins. / 71.1 x 84.4 cm, collection of Robert A. Roth

opportunities to enrich our understanding of outsider art and to expand its heritage. Each time, we worked together with experts or curators of these countries and gave rise to new questions. That is probably why we have been gradually taking up a unique place in the international community of outsider art. I see Halle Saint Pierre as the sounding board of all that concerns outsider art. How do you think outsider art has changed over the years you have been at HSP? Over 25 years the landscape of outsider art has changed significantly. It no longer belongs only to a handful of enthusiasts and is no longer restricted to initiated people. It has been introduced into museums, universities, media and the art market, and its parameters have dramatically expanded Dubuffet’s original vision. Of course, we can immediately point out the threats that arise from bringing to light works from authors who are so impervious to collective values and so little concerned by public opinion. Art market speculation and intellectual opportunism could indeed strip from outsider art its unique substance. But we need a much deeper insight into what has been happening over the past decades. The artistic and cultural context is no longer the same as in the days of Dubuffet’s first prospecting; the great inspired insane, the mystics and the solitary, marginalised people probably no longer exist, and above all they are no longer considered to be unsurpassable models. We have stopped thinking that the field is frozen

in time and cannot change. We now understand art brut or outsider art as a living, open and critical thought that does not stay in one place even if there are still debates to protect the strict identity of art brut, and more and more criticisms of the vacuous catch-all of outsider art. But, most importantly, we have reconsidered the anticultural positions of Dubuffet: we no longer consider outsider artists to be untouched by culture, but instead we believe that their works dysfunction in a singular way inside their culture. It enables us to understand, for example, how the idiosyncratic work of Séraphine de Senlis or Ilija Bosilj confuses the borders between art brut and naive art and how Bill Traylor, when he creates within his African American culture, manifests a quite unique and individualistic figurative world. We have progressively untied art brut from its Eurocentric beginnings and expanded our field of exploration in other geographical areas and cultures. Bispo do Rosario in Brazil or Nek Chand in India are, in my eyes, among the most important revelations of past years. We are just starting to open our mind to non-Western artists without considering them to be too burdened by their cultural backgrounds to be seen as “real” art brut. Lastly, we have become attentive to the fact that developmental and mental disability can also, with its dysfunction of expression and its disruption of cultural codes, enrich the heritage of art brut. Art brut from Japan gives us evidence of astonishing richness and diversity in this field, such as from Japanese workshops more recently RAW VISION 96

FINSTER’S SECRET LANGUAGE America’s foremost folk artist claimed to have his own secret language that not even he could understand NORMAN GIRADOT & JOHN TURNER

Untitled, magic marker on cardboard, 1989, 10 x 15 ins. / 25.4 x 38.1 cm, courtesy of John Turner

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Unknown Language, 1976, tractor enamel on found board, 9 x 8 ins. / 22.9 x 20.3 cm, pre-numbering, © Thomas E. Scanlin Collection

ur involvement with the extraordinary Southern Baptist preacher, visionary artist and self-styled “Stranger from Another World”, the Reverend Howard Finster (1916–2001), comprises more than 40 years of personal acquaintance, multiple publications, curated exhibitions, and an ongoing and often-puzzled fascination with the mystery of the man. As Finster quite accurately indicated when he declared himself to be a “Stranger from Another World”, no one (including his family as well as inquisitive journalists and professortypes) had “realy never figured” [sic] him out. Finster often said that all of his works, in terms of their imagery, biblical words and personal homiletics, were fundamentally “signs”, “messages from God” or “painted sermons” delivered to him as visionary communications from the Holy Ghost. But the deeper truth was always that these signs, whether found as words in the Bible itself or in Finster’s artworks as images and words, were not always very clear or understandable. And, as we shall see, there were sometimes hidden signs and messages written in a strange language that is a striking example of extreme unintelligibility. A kind of unknown from, as Finster would say, outer space. We refer to what is a relatively rare kind of “known unknown” displayed on a select number of Finster’s paintings and visionary writings such as his “thought cards” and his self-published Vision of 1982. The known unknown in question is what Finster called the “Unknown Language”, or an undecipherable script made up of semiabstract glyphs or pictographs. One of us, John Turner, was the pioneering explorer of these unknown mysteries. He notes that the surface of Finster’s artworks, especially the paintings from the late

1970s until Finster’s death in 2001, were often completely covered with both images and words. The hand-painted words that, Finster claimed, floated through him from God could be anything, from his own personal advice to quotations from the Bible that reinforced the subject matter of his work. Turner says that he saw a large body of Howard's work over the years, and of special interest were the relatively few pieces that contained – tightly hidden in the margins, or lost in the sea of words – a script or a succession of strange markings. Resembling hieroglyphics, the markings remained a total mystery, until one day when Turner had the opportunity to ask Finster about them. Taken aback with this inquiry, Finster told him in hushed tones that those figures were part of the “Unknown Language”, something he received in a late night vision, which he promptly highlighted in a small painting. He went on to say that he was confused and curious as to what the markings meant and had put some time away “to study them”. Looking through the Bible, Finster came across 1 Corinthians 14:2 (King James Version): “For he that speaketh in an unknown tongue not unto men, but unto God: for no man understandeth him; howbeit in the spirit he speaketh mysteries.” Finster understood that verse to mean that if you spiritually received something you didn't understand, it wasn't directed to you and as a result there was a large potential for you to misinterpret those signs, which could lead to grave consequences. He said he was afraid of that biblical warning and decided “not to fool with them again.” Several years later it was clear that Finster continued to “fool” around with the strange script although its mostly marginal and somewhat hidden appearance on RAW VISION 96

People Are Making Toys Out of Big and Dangerous Things, 1982, enamel on board, 31 x 25 ins. / 78.7 x 63.5 cm, #2536, © Thomas E. Scanlin Collection

various artworks was ostensibly a spontaneous and rare occurrence. In 1989, Turner brought the subject up again and asked Finster if he could “draw out” some of the symbols. He hesitantly agreed and, in sight of Turner, proceeded to ink out 81 stylistically similar hieroglyphiclike characters in ten minutes. Intriguingly, each glyph was unique, and in this sense did not seem to correspond to an alphabetic script. Although the marking might have been seen and memorised from one of the many books that Finster bought at garage sales, Turner theorised that the symbols could be a written form of glossolalia (speaking in tongues), which Howard had heard at the Pentecostal gatherings he had been exposed to in his travels throughout Alabama and Georgia. Norman Girardot’s encounter with Finster’s secret script was less dramatic, but no less captivating. In the early 1990s, Girardot and Finster fell into an extended conversation about his visionary art. Finster was always curious about what Girardot, as a professor of religion, thought about his works’ prophetic messages concerning the End Time. Finster indicated that he was getting “feelin’s” from the Holy Ghost and that, although he didn’t understand it, he suspected that he had been receiving prophetic revelations from God about the current times. The problem was that some of these were messages written in a strange kind of automatically generated “unknown language”. He showed Girardot a small painting that had a version of the odd script described 56

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above by Turner. A decade or so later, after Finster’s death, Girardot again saw several examples of Finster’s “found image” paintings in the collection of Thomas Scanlin that included this kind of odd script. At about the same time, the collector John Denton surprisingly pointed out the presence of a similar script as marginalia on several of the original handwritten and drawn pages of Finster’s fascinating colouring book rendition of his shamanistic journey into outer space called The Vision of 1982. The self-published offset edition of this booklet had unfortunately cut off this peculiar marginalia. At some time around 2010, Girardot started work on his Finster book and, through conversation with Turner, he discovered Turner’s earlier and more extensive involvement with the strange writing. The late 1970s to the early 1990s was the era most closely associated with this kind of sporadic and unusual visionary script. This peculiar, angular and almostcalligraphic script is surprisingly consistent, and is not easily or fully explained as some kind of semi-conscious “automatic”, “ideomotor” or “cryptomnesia” psychological phenomenon (that is, a memory that has surfaced, but is believed by the person to be something new and not a memory). Another suggestively interesting example of these mysteries is a work the whereabouts of which is now unknown. This work is entitled Like a Dream and depicts a murky, greenish landscape and blue-purple skyscape that

above Like a Dream, n.d., tractor enamel on board, no measurements, #1124

left Untitled (page 16 from the book Vision of 200 Light Years by Howard Finster), ink on paper, 8.5 x 10 ins. / 21.6 x 25.4 cm, #2000-406, John Denton Collection. The unknown language script is seen running down the left hand margin.

is crawling or raining with the unknown script. As Finster’s full inscription says, “Like a dream. Strange language bounces off my mind upon the end of my paint brush. Can you read it I would like to know what it means It may be important.” The work is signed by Finster as the “Man of Visions” and dated as “1000 and 124 paintings” (roughly 1978–79). It also includes a reference to the biblical proof text of Hosea 12:10, a passage about the visionary “ministry of the prophets” that reappears throughout Finster’s career as a prophetic maker of cryptic words, marks, templates, “dementions”, similitudes and emblems that are not always decipherable signs and messages from God. These were messages spontaneously communicated to Finster by the white-hot muse of his creative imagination. channelling the spiritual eye and invisible visionary power of the Holy Ghost. Never a Fundamentalist, traditional Pentecostalist or Holiness evangelical, Finster, as a self-guided Free Will Baptist, generally avoided such practices as speaking in tongues, healing by the laying on of hands, and snake handling. He was, however, truly open to the unexpected promptings of his “super brain” in the form of Holy Ghost phenomena (the “seven invisible members” of sense), such as visionary journeys to other worlds, prophetic revelations, scrawled messages and, more rarely, the cryptic unknown language or secret script. As a kind of scribal variation on the oral tradition of Pentecostal glossolalia, Finster the artist generated his own secret language of unknown graphemes – a kind of “grapholalia” or “writing in the spirit”. In keeping with some naturalistic cognitive and psychological theories, such apparently automatic speech or writing may be seen as partly a kind of learned behavior (that is, the so-called ideomotor and cryptomnesia effects that are used to explain such desperate-yet-related phenomena as glossolalia,

Surrealist automatic writing, dowsing, Spiritualist mediumistic channeling, Ouija boards, Daoist and Kongo spirit writings, Vodou veve markings, alchemical notation, and so on), in which the speaker or writer picks up on and semiconsciously reproduces some fragmented elements of sounds or images experienced elsewhere (perhaps from television, in Finster’s case). At the same time, this curious symbology might also be seen as simply another consciously made-up prop in a showman’s bag of tricks. Finster was always playing to his audience, but it seems overly cynical and simplistic to think that we fully understand such “automatic” performances, even when partially staged, as completely duplicitous whether by Finster, other outsider artists, visionaries, shamans, Romantic poets, or Surrealist artists. What Finster’s unknown language certainly reveals is his incredible, imaginative inventiveness, his creative versatility as a graphic artist, and his intuitive appreciation of the real mystery of biblical similitudes and symbols. At the end of this particular and very limited journey into the Finsterian unknown language and the larger cross-cultural occult universe, we are left again with Finster’s own perplexed inability to understand some of the many signs and messages he brought back from outer space. There is always a haunting sense that Finster was close to understanding the secret of these communications. But, as Finster indicates in one of his visionary declarations, published in the Summerville News of 1993, he “knows it not.” The truth is that the many unknown mysteries of life must be left to “someone else to explaine at a proper time of times.” [Sic] And we know not that time. Norman Giradot is Professor Emeritus of Lehigh University and author of Envisioning Howard Finster: The Myth and Meaning of a Stranger from Another World. John Turner is a filmmaker who has written on Howard Finster and outsider photography.

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LEAVING THE BODY, ENTERING THE COSMOS Robert Bannister expressed a cosmic consciousness through his work GLEN C. DAVIES

obert Bannister (1911–1996) had a deep interest in cosmic consciousness and psycho-cybernetics, areas of study he had explored via the piles of books and scientific journals collected in the small rented room he lived in near downtown Champaign, Illinois. When I first met him in 1975, he often told me he had a “cosmic awareness of human life”. Born in Urbana, Illinois, Bannister was stricken by tuberculosis of the hip when he was six years old. His

father died from complications of tuberculosis in 1917, and Robert and his mother were both admitted to Urbana’s Outlook Sanitarium. His mother died there in 1925. Young Robert continued to live there until he was 19 years old, then stayed with people he referred to as his “foster grandparents”. He suffered from anaemia and a poor diet, and was finally admitted to the Champaign County Nursing Home in the mid 1950s. During this stay at the nursing home, Bannister

Serious Concern, 1960s, ballpoint pen and coloured pencil on paper, 8.5 x 11 ins. / 21.6 x 27.9 cm

was first introduced to art tools through an occupational therapy programme. First attracted to woodcarving, Bannister later turned to drawing and painting. After his release in 1961, Bannister was left to live on his own. His impressions of the world around him were affected by the limits imposed by his disabilities and by his loneliness. His small room was one of a number that lined the back hallway of an apartment building. The rooms may have once been living space for building maintenance people or pensioners. There, Bannisterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s social contact must have included encounters and possibly friendships with other tenants, but when I visited he was invariably alone, sitting in his chair. He had no help with cleaning or housekeeping, and the imprint of his movements between chair and bed were ghostly. Walls were veiled with cobwebs, and nicotine-stained dust bunnies draped over all surfaces. Unable to walk without a cane, Bannister was visited regularly (but infrequently) by a Catholic charity, and once a year he was taken for a few days to a retreat in the country near St Louis. His only regular

The Nightmare, early 1970s, tempera on paper, 10 x 13.5 ins. / 25.4 x 34.3 cm

contact with the outside world was when he took his short walk to the lunch counter each day. He would greet and talk with the restaurant workers, and showed the roll of drawings that he carried in his coat to anyone who showed interest. The inspiration for Bannisterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s work came from a combination of sources. He collected magazines and books, including volumes on psycho-cybernetics, cosmic consciousness, human anatomy, and popular science and science fiction. Bannister used some of the techniques described in his books about psychoCybernetics to help organise his world and to find ways to overcome some of the limitations he was experiencing in life. Other experiences helped to shape Bannisterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s views of the world. When I interviewed him in 1989 at his home I recorded the audio, and he spoke about events that had affected his artistic vision: When I was in the nursing home there was a man next to me that had passed away. It was just the stillness of death. It seems like life ha[s] a vibrancy about it. You can feel that yourself you know, in your body. An aura or something...

Study for Harriet, late 1950s, coloured pencil on tissue paper, 9.75 x 8.5 ins. / 24.8 x 21.6 cm

In his art, Bannister explored â&#x20AC;&#x153;cosmic consciousnessâ&#x20AC;?, the term coined by the Canadian psychiatrist Richard Maurice Bucke in his 1901 book. Bannister believed that all conscious beings were linked to the universe through love. This philosophical notion was strengthened through his continued associations with the Catholic charitable group that helped him from time to time and exposure to other religious groups who visited Bannister. These interests, coupled with a few anatomy

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books, provided him with the inspiration to explore his inner thoughts and fancies. Using the basic materials of Bic pen and coloured pencils, tempera and watercolour on paper, Bannister would work on the same drawing or painting for years. His work took on a true intensity due to the almost unlimited time he took to embellish his simple designs. Evident in works that include Man Explodes and Serious Concern, he sometimes wore the paper thin with repeated ink strokes. In his painted portraits of the television celebrities, Ozzie and Harriet,

Study for Ozzie, late 1950s, coloured pencil on tissue paper, 10.75 x 8.5 ins. / 27.3 x 21.6 cm

the countless layers of paint applied to the pupils of the eyes ended up resembling a pair of glued-on Cheerios, and constant resurfacing of the lips turned them into sculpted reliefs. Bannister was aware of fine art and proudly displayed a magazine print of da Vinci’s Mona Lisa on his wall. Many of his works might seem related to surrealism, but his imagery was not connected to works of surrealist artists. Bannister’s work is a form of storytelling that used humour and what he called

“flights of fancy”. His limited physical movement transformed him into an armchair traveller who created metaphors for escape through his drawings and paintings, sprouting wings, wearing jet packs and creating flying machines. He even used flying eyeballs in several of his works, perhaps to express his desires to explore the outer world. During my visits to his room to see his creations, he delighted in telling me the story behind the picture or relating the fanciful title of each work.

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MARTÍN RAMÍREZ: A JOURNEY Ricco/Maresca Gallery, New York October 26 – December 2, 2017 This past autumn, prominent exhibitions of the celebrated selftaught artist Martín Ramírez appeared on both coasts of the United States. In California, the newly opened Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, presented “Martín Ramírez: His Life in Pictures, Another Interpretation”. Part of “Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA”, a multi-museum project exploring Latin-American and Latino art, it featured roughly 50 of the artist’s drawings and collages. On loan from the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Chicago-based artist-collectors Jim Nutt and Gladys Nilsson, they spanned the period from 1931, the year of Ramírez’s initial institutionalisation, to 1963, the year of his death. In New York, a complementary, more intimate show of 16 drawings was on view at Ricco/Maresca, the gallery that exclusively represents Ramírez’s estate. This one focused on his works of the 1950s and the early 1960s, a period in which Ramírez was a resident psychiatric patient at DeWitt State Hospital in Auburn, northern California. Here, several works featured rows of archways, one of Ramírez’s favourite motifs. Untitled (Arches) (circa 1960–63, 64

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EXHIBITIONS

above: Martin Ramirez, The Never Seen I Bring to You as a Gift, 2015, ink and pastel on paper

gouache and graphite on paper) exemplified the strength of the artist’s line even when he used little more than thin scraps of paper found among the refuse at the hospital as his drawing’s surface. In another, similarly-titled work, Ramírez used fiery-orange coloured pencil to articulate his archways. Both drawings showcase the artist’s facility with shading and his ability to create seemingly three-dimensional architectural spaces on two-dimensional surfaces. Ramírez worked on the railroad during the 1920s. Trains, tunnels, female figures in profile, and jinetes, or male figures on horseback, often toting their guns, are other recurring themes in his drawings. In Untitled (Man Riding Donkey, Triptych) (circa 1960–63, gouache, coloured pencil, and graphite on paper), Ramírez’s male figure rides a donkey on a stage-like structure, flanked by passages of thick, cascading lines resembling the curtains on a theatre’s stage, and in Untitled (Abstracted Landscape with Horse and Rider) (circa 1960–63, gouache and graphite on pieced-together paper) another man on horseback seems to be marooned on a videogame-like floating platform. Sarah Fensom

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Ionel Talpazan

Albert Vecchiarelli

EXHIBITIONS

IONEL TALPAZAN INSTALLATION Christopher Kane, Mount Street, London W1 October 5 – November 1, 2017 Christopher Kane, one of London’s most upmarket fashion houses, was the venue for this stunning retrospective of work based on the themes of UFOs and space travel by the late New York-based artist Ionel Talpazan. Originally from Romania, Talpazan escaped the country during the oppressive Communist era, swimming a river to cross the border. He made a new life for himself in New York City and became a familiar figure as he hawked his paintings on the streets, even selling them outside the Outsider Art Fair where they were being sold by his dealer at much higher prices. Completely self-taught, Talpazan claimed he had been the victim of alien abduction and his entire life’s work reflected his obsession of that experience and with his ambition to travel into space himself. The installation at Christopher Kane was the largest retrospective so far of Talpazan’s work showing not only his well known UFO pictures and plans but also 3D models of flying saucers and even an animation of his imagery showing on a big screen. The importance of the installation was highlighted by window displays of Talpazan’s work. The paintings and sculptures were not for sale but were shown in the most elegant surroundings alongside clothing and accessories by Christopher Kane that were artworks in themselves. Kane had also employed some of Talpazan’s imagery in his fashion lines. Kane has been a long time follower of outsider art since he was a Raw Vision reader at art school and it undoubtedly has a deep resonance for him and his work. After a visit to Gugging’s Haus der Kunstler he organised an installation of work by artists from the Austrian community. At first it may seem an unusual idea to combine imaginative fashion with a raw art installation but the juxtaposition worked very well to the benefit of both. It is encouraging to see a new venue in London for people to see international outsider art and hopefully the concept will be repeated in the future. John Maizels

SAINTE-ANNE PSYCHIATRIC HOSPITAL 150th ANNIVERSARY EXHIBITION 15 Sep – 26 Nov 2017, Nov 30 – Feb 28 2018, Paris The MAHHSA (Musée d’Art et d’Histoire de l’Hôpital SainteAnne) organised two exhibitions to show the main figures and events in the history of its collection. The first exhibition, “Elle était une fois : Acte I, les origines de la Collection Sainte-Anne”, was focused on 125 works, which served as the basis for the foundation of the museum. The paintings drawn between 1858 and 1949 showed the variety of patients’ creation. We could see there some peaceful genre paintings of the patient called H.A.R., which were a realistic testimony of everyday life at the hospital in the 19th century. Futuristic flying devices imagined by an anonymous artist, August Millet’s humorous drawings; a drawing resembling naïve or folk art, or others painted in a classical manner, were also on display. Some artists represented at this exhibition have their own very original and recognisable style, for instance, G.Martin, who covered his paintings of villages with red, green and blue strokes. The second exhibition, “Elle était une fois : Acte II, Autour de 1950”, aims to trace the main events in the recognition of the collection as a part of French cultural heritage. The main focus of the exhibition is the exchanges between Jean Dufuffet and the psychiatrist Dr. Robert Volmat, two personalities who defended the art of mental patients, but from different points of view. This exhibition also shows the importance of the International Exhibition of Psychopathological Art, which was the first large-scale exhibition of 2000 works of mental patients. It took place at Saint Anne Hospital in 1950 and was dedicated to the First World Congress of Psychiatry. The exhibition demonstrates the main works from the exhibition of 1950 and the donations to the museum of Saint Anne Hospital made after that exhibition. Among the displayed works, we can see the drawings of Aloïse Corbaz, Adolf Wölfli, Guillaume Pujolle, as well as works of the Brazilian artists from Juqueri hospital and artists from the Collection de l’Art Brut in Lausanne and LaM in Villeneuve-d’Ascq. Alla Chernetska RAW VISION 96

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EVENTS / BOOKS

Dr. Charles Smith

Terri Yoho with Ruth Kohler

LE GAZOUILLIS DES ÉLÉPHANTS by Bruno Montpied, Editions du Sandre, Paris ISBN 9782358211161

Jim Draeger, Erika Nelson, Peter Tokovsky, Alex Gartelmann

THE ROAD LESS TRAVELED JM Kohler Arts Center, Sheboygan, WI September 26–29, 2017 The Kohler Foundation under the direction of Ruth Kohler and Terri Yoho has had astounding success over the years in its programme of protecting and conserving environmental sites around the United States. This conference was a testament to their achievements and attracted the leading figures in a much loved field to consider various aspects of discovery, display and conservation. The event was accompanied by a stunning exhibition which included the Rhinestone Cowboys’ complete house and a section devoted to SPACES and its founder Seymour Rosen which included Larry Harris’ famous model of Watts Towers. The conference began with a consideration of the role of museums in the conservation of works from environments by Valerie Rousseau (AFAM), Katherine Jentleson (High Museum) and Lisa Stone (Roger Brown). The high standard of panel members was sustained by contributions by Dr Iain Jackson (Nek Chand Rock Garden), Karen Patterson (Kohler Arts Center), Randall Morris (the importance of outsider art from the Caribbean), Jo Farb Hernandez (Spanish Environments) and Charles

Russell (Rutgers) among many others, who examined the way environmental works are perceived and their place in an art historical context. One of the great successes of the Kohler programme in the last few years has been the complete and extensive restoration of Pasaquan, the environmental compound built by Eddie Owen Martin aka St EOM in Georgia. The conservators involved, including Fred Fussell, presented a detailed account of the progress and achievement of this complex project. Artist and environment builder Dr Charles Smith led an impassioned discussion on his role and position in society and the relationship to his work. On the same panel Jenenne Whitfield was equally powerful in her presentation of Tyree Guyton’s Heidelberg Project in Detroit and its struggle to stand against the negativity of city authorities and vandalistic arson attacks. A celebratory dinner was held to honour Ruth Kohler and to acknowledge the achievements of the Kohler Foundation over the years with moving tributes from different speakers. The following evening saw a presentation in memory of Seymour Rosen and his pioneering organisation SPACES, the first to offer support and recognition to selftaught artist environments. John Maizels

This massive tome of almost 1000 pages is a life work by Bruno Montpied who is one of the foremost researchers of French environments. Every known site in every French Départment is listed and described, with maps, photographs and information. This unprecedented work will be featured in a future Raw Vision where we hope we can do it justice.

LIVING IN ART BRUT Works From the Hannah Rieger Collection, ISBN 9783950217360 Hannah Rieger is one of Austria’s leading collectors in the field of outsider art and this stylish book presents 123 works from her collection. Essays include texts by Johann Feilacher and Monika Jagfeld. There is understandably a strong emphasis on works from Gugging but the collection also extends to Nek Chand and Mary T Smith while contemporary outsiders include Guo Fengyi, Donald Mitchell, Michel Nedjar, Martha Grunenwaldt, Beverley Baker and the matchstick carvings of Pradeep Kumar. John Maizels RAW VISION 96

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BOOKS

THE SECRET WORLD OF RENALDO KUHLER Brett Ingram, 2017, Blast Books, New York City $45, 430 colour illustrations, ISBN: 978-0-922233-48-9 For decades after 1969, few if anyone in Raleigh, North Carolina, knew that the oddly-dressed man riding a city bus was the creator of an intensely private, secretive, imaginary world. The man was Renaldo Kuhler (1931–2013), and he stood an imposing 6’4” (1.93 m) tall, sporting a long white beard and usually wearing his personally-designed uniforms of sleeveless jackets, lederhosen, decorative epaulets and Boy Scout neckerchiefs. Though he was a memorable figure to passersby, almost no one knew of Kuhler’s secret fantasy life. A pivotal moment in Kuhler’s life occurred in 1996 when Brett Ingram, a local filmmaker, happened upon him by chance, and over the next 17 years the story of an imaginary nation called Rocaterrania began to come to light. It all started in 1948, when the Kuhler family moved to an isolated ranch in Colorado, a lifestyle 17-yearold Renaldo abhorred and that he was admittedly ill-suited to. Kuhler described his parents as distant and cold, and he was a miserable teenager. To escape the boredom of his situation, young Renaldo began to invent the secret nation of Rocaterrania, an imaginary sovereign nation located on the border of New York and Canada. What he created was a fabricated sociological experiment complete with its own government, military, alphabet, religions and more. Eventually Kuhler left home, changed his name, attended college and continued his work on Rocaterrania. Years later in 1969, 70

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Kuhler was hired by the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences as a scientific illustrator. Each day at the museum, Kuhler was given assignments to draw natural objects, the perfect job for honing his skills to illustrate the story of Rocaterrania. Kuhler’s imaginary dystopian country has been compared to the world of reclusive artist Henry Darger. There is no question that Kuhler was something of a misfit in the day-today life he navigated, but further close comparisons grow wider between the two. Darger was totally withdrawn from society and, few would argue, completely out of touch with reality. His epic In the Realms of the Unreal... reveal a psychosis far darker and unresolved than Kuhler’s obsession with Rocaterrania. For 30 years, Kuhler’s work required him to often interact with museum staff, and he even enjoyed frequenting a local restaurant – something Darger would have been incapable of doing. Still, Kuhler’s fantasy nation is a deeply creative and obsessively illustrated life work. The Secret World of Renaldo Kuhler is a beautifully-designed book by the renowned Laura Lindgren, illustrated with over 400 of Kuhler’s imaginative drawings. Skilfully written by Brett Ingram, who knew Kuhler for 17 years, the private world of Rocaterrania is finally available for enjoyment and study. John Foster

developed mostly unconnected to any outside trends and had a different set of myths which influenced artists, mostly Soviet and Russian folk art. It became recognised as important much later than in the west and artists such as Leonov and Lobanov remained marginalised and dejected. But the same trends of naïve art and art brut appeared independently in Russian outsider art. The Russian public is also not very informed about European and American art brut and this book fills this gap. Bogemskaya borrowed the title of her book from Alena Bourbonnais' collection of the same name, because it allows conversation about both naïve creativity and the artistic primitive. The book also has a large chapter about the outstanding Russian outsider artist Romanenkov. Ksenia Bogemskaya (1947-2010) was a doctor of art history, an outstanding Russian art critic and a collector of naïve and outsider art.

OUTSIDER ART: INYE COLLECTION by Vladimir Gavrilov, 2017 ISBN 9785906815798

ART OUTSIDE THE NORMS by Ksenia Bogenskaya Moscow, Booksmart, 2017 ISBN 978-5-906190-23-9 The goal of this book is to put Russian outsider and naïve art in context with developments in international visionary art. Russian naïve art

This album presents works from the INYE Collection (Yaroslavl, Russia). Among the artworks are those by famous Russian artists like Lobanov, Romanenkov, Leonov, Neonila, Pyzhova and Belych as well as foreign outsider artists, plus some new names. Gavrilov, a medical doctor of psychiatry, started collecting authentic pieces of outsider art from the early 1980s, and became the founder and curator of Russia’s largest collection “INYE”. Gavrilov reflects on the creative process of amateur artists, considering the interconnection of art and psychopathology. There are over 650 artworks in the book (taken from over 4000 works that form the INYE Collection) whose 130 artists include psychopathological expression, art brut, naïve art and spontaneous art therapy. Alexei Turchin