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Gallery HighlightsABCD: A Collection of Art Brut April 26 - June 29, 2003
Chicago Cultural Center It is strange imagery, often inspired by neurosis or spiritual revelation, prepared by untrained or self-trained artists. And yet... it sticks in mind. ABCD: A Collection of Art Brut shows the amazing power, range, and versatility of these products of obsessive creativity, produced by untutored artists, many of them under psychiatric care. ABCD: A Collection of Art Brut brings to Chicago an international touring exhibition of Outsider Art from the collection of the Parisian foundation ABCD (Art Brut Conaissance & Diffusion). Featuring the work of 36 Outsider Artists, mostly Europeans, the over 100 works in this exhibition are a comprehensive tour of the seminal figures of the genre. This art is as diverse as the individual histories of its creators, and it is oddly compelling. Art Brut, also known as Outsider Art, is a 20th-century phenomenon. In the 1940s, artist Jean Dubuffet found the ideals of automatism and Surrealism realized in artwork being created by mentally ill patients. Coining the term 'Art Brut' -- 'raw' or 'uncooked' art, art produced beyond the pale of classical training -- he championed it as a legitimate art form. Now well-represented throughout the world, Art Brut is a recognized genre, its bounds expanded to include not just the work of institutionalized artists, but other outsiders with intuitive or self-taught talents. A peril of Outsider Art is in focusing on the biographies over the work itself; and though the strangeness of these artists' stories does have an undeniable pull, ABCD: A Collection of Art Brut avoids such a pitfall with a showing of some very strong work. This is not to say the biographies do not deepen an understanding of the work; but the best of these works contain energy, power and coherence in and of themselves. Surreal vision and mystic charisma charge the works of Emmanuel "le Calligraphe" (Emmanuel Deriennic) (French, 1908-1965), whose swirling turbulence of letterforms and calligraphic handling of line (hence his nickname) are filled with hidden faces. The art of Fleury-Joseph Crépin (French, 1875-1948) displays a taut, intense congruity: geometric forms and arrays of dots in talismanic precision, bright with saturated color, and perfectly placed. Eugène Gabritschevsky's (Russian, 1893-1979) works in gouache include one which, with its fluid watercolor feel and elongated proportions, is a hauntingly uncanny, otherworldly face, part spirit, part little girl. Across the broad spectrum of imagery offered in these and other works in the exhibition, the anchoring factor is an energy rooted in some compulsion. This expressiveness is as often driven by neurosis, or serves as exorcism of personal pain. The artists' ages and the dates of the works, usually from the 1950s and 60s, place these offerings in the incunabular phases of Art Brut, and ABCD: A Collection of Art Brut can, in part, serve as a retrospective of the genre. Adolf Wolfli (Swiss, 1864-1930) is one of the earliest and best-known artists of Art Brut, and this exhibition provides the opportunity to view in person one of his large, repetitive, semi-musical compositions, rife with its own symbology and logic. Chicago's own Outsider Artist is also represented: Henry Darger (American, 1892-1973), his nine-foot, banner-like compositions filled to brimming on both sides with the childlike, narrative action that is his trademark. ABCD: A Collection of Art Brut will be at the Cultural Center through June 29, 2003, with over 100 works by 36 artists on display in the fourth-floor Sidney R. Yates Gallery. These untrained, yet skillful compositions make an intriguing commentary on innate human creativity and its escape into physical expression, and perhaps the greatest benefit of seeing this show is its amazing variety. No two artists are alike: these are highly individual visions. Whether channeled, 'doodled' or driven by psychosis, there is an inner coherence to the best of these works that rivets attention and rewards looking. As the ABCD catalog notes, Outsider Art "invites us to contemplate the creations... and for each one of them, meet their particular world, sometimes unusual and disturbing but always fascinating because of the enigma it represents." ABCD: A Collection of Art Brut comes to Chicago from Koln, Germany and will tour in modified form to France, Finland, and Estonia. A 378-page catalog of the ABCD collection of Outsider Art, ABCD: une collection de l'art brut (July 2000:ABCD and Actes Sud), features 443 reproductions including works from this exhibition, and is available for $65.00 at the Cultural Center. --Katherine Rook Lieber Katherine Rook Lieber has edited ArtScope.net's Visual and Performing Arts reviews since 1998. Ms. Lieber is Editor and Associate Producer for ArtScope.net. Editorial Note: Related Chicago exhibitions include Henry Darger: Connecting the Realms of Beauty and Horror at Carl Hammer Gallery (http://www.hammergallery.com/) from April 25 - May 31, 2003, which includes several Darger works newly released for public exhibition from the artist's estate. Artists of Gugging, at Judy Saslow Gallery (http://www.jsaslowgallery.com/), highlights recent work of ten artists from the Art Hospital in Gugging, Austria, and will be showing from June 6 - July 12, 2003. Intuit: The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art (http://outsider.art.org/) is also presenting Gugging: An Artist's House from June 13 - December 20, 2003. Henry Darger: Connecting the Realms of Beauty and Horror was reviewed by ArtScope.net in May 2003 (http://www.artscope.net/VAREVIEWS/darger0503.shtml). |
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