Now Open Outsider Art Fair, the premier fair dedicated to self-taught art, art brut and outsider art from around the world, is
pleased to announce the roster of exhibitions for its first-ever multi-venue event, taking place January 28, 2021 – February 7, 2021. Among the exhibitors taking part in this year’s online OAF, many will be using
the occasion to showcase recent discoveries or emblematic works by some of their
most notable artists.
Untitled, Adolf Wölfli (c. 1922-25). Crayon, pencil, and coloured pencil on paper, 19.8 x 26.4 in. From London’s Gallery of Everything, one of the highlights of the fair will be an exceptional Adolf Wölfli drawing from the early 1920s in coloured pencil on paper, with the artist’s handwritten text on the reverse side.
Cross's of Jehovah and Yahoveh, George M. Silsbee (c. 1891). Ink on paper; 25.125 x 21.5 in. Ricco/Maresca Gallery introduce ink-on-paper works by George M. Silsbee (1840-1900) featuring exquisite calligraphy, intriguing symbols, and allusions to mysticism and the occult.
In conjunction with the online presentation, a few group exhibitions featuring works
of art that will be offered for sale by the fair’s participants will be mounted at galleries
or other venues in New York. They will be open to the public but will require a
collective, paid admission ticket. Information regarding access to the online fair and
the $15.00 ticket allowing entry to all of these exhibitions may be found on the
Outsider Art Fair’s website (www.outsiderartfair.com). Text extracts from Edward M. Gómez (Senior Editor, Raw Vision)
Atlas Press:
New Unica Zürn booksAtlas Press have announced the release of two new books by Unica Zürn, and both are on offer at a discounted price to Raw Vision fans until 5 Februrary 2021.
The Man of Jasmine A celebrated autobiographical work translated and introduced by Malcolm Green It is 25 years since Atlas Press first published this account by Unica Zürn of her long history of mental crises. She has come to be recognised as a great artist at least the equal of her partner, the Surrealist Hans Bellmer.
Zürn’s initial mental collapse was initiated when she encountered her fantasy figure “the man of Jasmine” in the real world in the person of the writer Henri Michaux. Her meeting with him plunged her into a world of hallucination in which visions of her desires, anxieties and events from her unresolved past overwhelmed her present life.
The House of Illnesses A complete facsimile, translated and introduced by Malcolm Green Her return to “reality” was constantly interrupted by alternate visionary and depressive periods, and her description of these episodes reveals how language itself formed a part of the “divinatory” method that could aid her recovery or predict a new crisis.
“The House of Illnesses” was the first of her notebooks to confront this oncoming catastrophe which, paradoxically, she in part welcomed, since it gave her access to an inner existence essential to her artistic output. Her works, a combination of text and drawings, tread the borderline between Outsider Art and Surrealism.
In 1970 she committed suicide by throwing herself from the sixth-floor apartment that she shared with Bellmer.
Spread from The House of Illnesses (page 42–43)
January 17 to April 17, 2021Uwe Paulsen (b. 1940) was born in Heide in Schleswig. He has lived in a psychiatric residence in Schleswig since he was seven years old. For many years he has worked with art in the Art Workshop Hesterberg & Stadtfeld, where he is still active at the age of 80.
Untitled, Uwe Paulsen (2008). Oil pastel on paper 48.5 x 38 cm He is inspired by postcards or book illustrations and most often works with oil pastels. First he draws the contours of the motif with pencil, and then he fills it in with colors. After the first layer of color, he uses his hands to rub the color out. Then he puts on new colors and repeats the process again… and again… and again. Therefore, the images appear blurred and without clear lines, almost with a floating, dreamlike character.
Portrait of Jens Peters in Holland, Uwe Paulsen (2017). Oil pastel on paper 69.5 x 49.5 cm Central to Uwe Paulsen's pictures are the eyes. They look openly and kindly towards the world and invite the viewer in. The eyes are the mirror of the soul.
The exhibition is a cooperation between GAIA Museum in Randers, Denmark and Barbara Leonhard from the Outsider Art Museum in Schleswig who has lent the works GAIA.
NIAD Art Center in California has a new online exhibition showcasing artist who create both fiber art and paintings. View the show here.
Wallhanging, Carlota Rodriguez (2017). Mixed media, fabric and embroidery, 19 x 24 in. From exhibition curator, Samantha Bittman: "For this exhibition, I decided to focus on a selection of paintings and fiber-based artworks by Carlota Rodriguez and Elena Rossi."
Untitled, Elena Rossi (2018). Marker on paper, 18 x 14 in. "In each artist’s work, I was immediately compelled by their use of vibrant color, pattern, and materiality, as well as their loose approach to geometric composition, which strikes me as playfully balanced between symmetry and asymmetry, pattern and disarrangement."
abcd / ART BRUT short film:
Melvin WayBruno Decharme, founder of the abcd Art Brut Collection based in Paris, has released a series of documentary films on art brut artists; this week, we would like to highlight the work of Melvin Way. Melvin Way (b. 1954) was born in South Carolina. As an adult, he began to experience psychotic episodes. He soon found himself on the margins of society and living on the street. In the 1980s he met the artist Andrew Castrucci who took care of him and encouraged him in his artistic work.
"MELVIN WAY", documentary by Bruno Decharme (2020) Melvin Way draws on on small formats — which he keeps folded in his pocket or hidden in books — made up of small pieces of paper glued together, blackened with a ballpoint pen with “mathematical” or “chemical” formulas, accompanied by symbols and enigmatic words, then covered in places with adhesive tape. He warned collectors who purchased his works not to attempt to use the formulas in his works because they are, according to him,
“powerful and too dangerous.” He claims to have been President of the United States on several occasions, to have played in famous funk groups. "I have had amnesia for thirty-five years. Now I am a different person. The same, auto-identical… I am 58 years old but next year I will be around 473 years… I don’t draw, I do repair science, medical science … I have bought Puerto Rico, my palace was in Texas… I was in the Himalayas, my bedroom was in the Guggenheim, Salomon Guggenheim, my little Solomon. ”
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