July 10 2020     #172

Jennifer Lauren Gallery, Meet the Collector Series: 

John and Maggie Maizels

John surrounded by art and books, working on Raw Vision; Maggie in her studio

As part of their 'Meet the collector' series, the Jennifer Lauren Gallery recently published an interview with art collectors John an Maggie Maizels; John is the founder of Raw Vision magazine, and Maggie – Raw Vision's art editor – is an artist herself.

From John:

The magazine was started out of my obsession with outsider art and the need to tell people about it – to show that there really was a real art, an art that wasn't commercial or superficial. Nobody knew about it at all and I just wanted to tell the world.

Read the full interview here.

Tierra Del Sol Gallery exhibition: 

Dru McKenzie

From July 10 – August 28, 2020 Tierra Del Sol are hosting an exhibition of Dru McKenzie's work, curated from artworks made over 25 years.

McKenzie draws on various inspirations found in high fashion magazines and National Geographic to produce a richly layered and deeply personal iconography.

McKenzie’s mastery lies in her interpretative approach to her subject matter. [She] transforms ordinary imagery she encounters in the world and on the page into something potent and uniquely her own, with an indigeneity that invokes a mysticism fundamental to sensory experience.

Untitled (1), Dru McKenzie, 2010. Coloured pencil and marker on paper, 60 x 45 cm (24 x 18 in.)

This resonance is accomplished in the emblematic rendering of her images and the layering of colored pencil and brush tip markers on dynamic color fields of acrylic paint.

Color references pop aesthetics in McKenzie’s compositions ... [she] explores geometry and dimension when she considers the elements of a subject’s face, paying particular attention to eyes and eyelashes, made more resolved against her emotionally weighted, hued backgrounds.

Untitled (25), McKenzie, 2010. Coloured pencil and marker on paper, 18 x 18 cm (7 x 7 in.)

These magical works are on view for the first time at Tierra del Sol Gallery in Chinatown. The exhibition can be viewed in person by appointment or on the gallery website.

Follow the gallery on Instagram @tierradelsolgallery.

The Collection of Mediumistic Art artist focus:

Alma Rumball

The Collection of Mediumistic Art is a private collection and has been compiled by psychologist Dr. Elmar R. Gruber over a period of 40 years.

Gruber’s fascination with mediumistic art was based on the fact that it united two of his major fields of interest: art as well as transpersonal and paranormal experiences.  Intrigued by his encounters with mediumistic artists, he began to collect their work.

Untitled, Alma Rumball, 1960s. Coloured ink on paper, 58.6 x 73.5 cm (23 x 28.9 in.)

The collection includes works by Canadian outsider and mediumistic artist Alma Rumball (1902–1980).

One of her untitled pieces (above) is not only impressive, but also disturbing and very strange. It is from the early 1960s. The two figures, dissolved into their surroundings, seem to wear black face masks. They have a frightened expression on their faces and are exposed to a reality full of unknown influences. The picture appears to be a premonition of the Corona crisis or something like a precognitive commentary on it.

 

Untitled, Rumball, 1970s. Coloured ink on paper, 43.5 x 35.5 cm (17.1 x 14 in.)

Indeed, there are at times reports of mediumistic works in which future events have manifested themselves as if in a pictorial premonition. Some of Hilma af Klint's later works suggest that they should be interpreted in this way.

Untitled, Rumball, 1960s. Coloured ink on paper, 23.5 x 58.2 cm (9.3 x 22.9 in.)

Learn more about the collection and explore work from other mediumistic artists by visiting their website: mediumistic.art.

Galerie Arthur Borgnis artist focus:

Jaroslav Frantisek Pecka

Arthur Borgnis is a film director and gallery owner. He fell in love with art brut during the shooting of his film 'Eternity has no door of escape' (2018). After working for more than a year for several internationally renowned art brut galleries, he decided to set up his own gallery (Galerie Arthur Borgnis) at the end of 2018.

The gallery offers great classics of art brut and gives pride of place to Czech mediumistic art as well as to the artists it represents and discovered. Borgnis also makes films in parallel with his gallery activity.

It was during the shooting of his film 'Enter the Spirit', devoted to Czech mediumistic art (to be released in 2021), that he discovered the mediumistic work of František Jaroslav Pecka.

Untitled, Pecka, 1927. Colored pencils on paper, 88 x 60 cm (34,6 x 23,6 in)

A follower of spiritualism, František Jaroslav Pecka (1878-1960) began to create art in the early 20s. His first works were abstract and colorful, sometimes floral. He later created portraits of women and androgynous creatures, strongly inspired by art nouveau. 

Writer, archaeologist, teacher, geologist, paleontologist and member of the Czech Metapsychic Society, his work was exhibited in Prague, Brno and Paris during the National Spiritist Congress in 1927.

'FRANTISEK JAROSLAV PECKA', by GALERIE ARTHUR BORGNIS, 2020

This work disappeared for almost a century, until his family discovered mysterious boxes stored in a cellar few years ago.

Pecka's works were recently shown in the exhibitions 'Lesage, Simon, Crépin - Painter, spiritualists and healers', LaM (2019) and 'Not Without My Ghosts: The Artist As Medium', Hayward Gallery (2020).​

Learn more about Pecka and other Czech mediumistic artists at the gallery's website: www.galeriearthurborgnis.com

DVD of 'Eternity has no door of escape' is available at eternityhasnodoor.com.

‘The Keepers Project’ is a UK Arts Council England-funded audio-visual archival project on outsider/folk art sites in the UK, by artist David Clegg and photographer Thierry Bal. The project’s aim is to document threatened environments made by self-taught artists through sound recordings and photographs. 

Rory McCormack at Flint Grotto, Brighton Beach, East Sussex. Photo credit: The Keepers Project

Interviews with the artists – or those preserving their legacy – record the history of each environment and address the financial, physical and emotional challenges of preservation.

Flint Grotto, Brighton Beach, East Sussex. Photo credit: The Keepers Project

Listen to an interview with Rory McCormack, the last fisherman to keep his boat on Brighton beach and self-taught sculptor. talks about fishing, being labelled an outsider artist, and the uncertain future of his grotto in the face of commercial development.

Flint Grotto, Brighton Beach, East Sussex. Photo credit: The Keepers Project

Their website was launched on July 9 and currently features seven art sites, including McCormack's envrionment. Explore their other featured outsider environments and their keepers at www.thekeepersproject.com.

Follow them on Instagram at @thekeepersproject, and follow Bal's photography at @thiery_bal. Clegg is also the founder of the Trebus Project, the world’s largest archive of interviews with people with dementia.

Obituary: 

Gerhard Dammann (1963–2020)

Gerhard Dammann, a Swiss psychiatrist who, with his wife Karin, became known for his deep interest in art brut and for the comprehensive collection they assembled in this field, died on June 20, 2020, in Münsterlingen, Switzerland. He was 56 years old.

As an intern at the Prinzhorn Collection in Heidelberg, Germany, Dammann became familiar with the artistic creations of psychiatric patients and their relationship to the history of art brut. Later, with his wife, he began amassing what would become one of the most substantive collections in this specialised field in Europe. 

Karin and Gerhard Dammann. Photo credit: Museum im Lagerhaus

The Dammann Collection includes more than 600 works of art, including pieces by such emblematic art brut and outsider art creators as Henry Darger, Martín Ramírez, Guo Fengyi, and Ann Zemánková. The Dammanns often focused on the works of art brut makers associated with the psychiatric history of the genre, such as Aloïse Corbaz and Adolf Wölfli.

Text courtesy of Edward M Gómez; read the full obituary on the Raw Vision website, coming this weekend.

Raw Vision back issue and sourcebook sale

Learn more about Czech outsider artists in Raw Vision #52 and about outsider art environments in our digital version of the Outsider Art Sourcebook: Environments.

All back issues are currently half price for a limited time only.

For orders of 10+ issues please email info@rawvision.com for a reduced postage cost.

Raw Vision 105 out now