September 25 2020 #183
Fountain House Gallery exhibition:
"Let America Be America"
Fountain House Gallery – the premier venue in New York City representing artists with mental illness – today announced the upcoming exhibition Let America Be America, inspired by the Langston Hughes poem “Let America Be America Again.” The show will be presented online from September 24, 2020, through November 11, 2020.
We the People Stand Indivisible, Dubblex (2019). Acrylic and marker on canvas, 50.8 x 50.8 cm (20 x 20 in.)
The exhibition press release (which you can read in full by clicking here) states:
In this election year, when many Americans are raising their voices in pursuit of social justice, Fountain House Gallery artists raise their diverse artistic voices in Let America Be America. Following the lead of Hughes’s iconic words, in this exhibition these visual artists explore the meaning of “We the People.”
80's to 20's USA, Shelia Horne (2020). Acrylic paint, marker, & watercolor collage on canvas, 50.8 x 40.6 cm (20 x 16 in.)
The exhibition is curated by Fountain House Studio Coordinator Karen Gormandy, who said:
“To know the work of Langston Hughes is to know the soul of America and to feel America in our hearts. In ‘Let America Be America Again‘ he beautifully and tragically portrays the struggles and the triumphs of the common man and points to who that common man is: the ‘We’ whose ancestors came to this country as slaves from the banks of Africa, as well as Native Americans, immigrants hailing from numerous lands, working people, youth, and more.“
Country Roads Take Me Home, Issa Ibrahim (2017). Oil on canvas, 91.4 x 61 cm (36 x 24 in.)
Read the Langston Hughes poem here. The online exhibition can be viewed at: artsy.net/show/fountain-house-gallery-let-america-be-america
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American Folk Art Museum:
Audrey Heckler’s 500+ piece outsider art collection
Just a few years ago, Audrey B. Heckler’s over 500-piece collection of outsider art had rarely been seen in public. Now, nearly the entirety of her holdings—one of the country’s most important and comprehensive collections of self-taught art—will be donated to New York’s American Folk Art Museum.
Untitled, Adolf Wölfli (1918); photo: Visko Hatfield, courtesy of the Foundation to Promote Self Taught Art and Rizzoli International Publications, Inc.
“I love these artworks and have collected them with care,” said Heckler in a statement. “I want them to stay together and to be a part of the American Folk Art Museum—a place I deeply cherish—so that they can be enjoyed by visitors, scholars, and artists for years to come.”
Untitled, Charlie Willeto (1961–64); photo: Visko Hatfield, courtesy of the Foundation to Promote Self Taught Art and Rizzoli International Publications, Inc.
The museum’s senior curator, Valérie Rousseau, told the Art Newspaper that the collection illustrates the growth of the field of self-taught art in the United states, ranging from European Art Brut to African American artists, and that “the collection reflects the depth and diversity of self-taught art over the last century.”
Untitled granite sculpture, Barbus Müller, a.k.a. Antoine Rabany (c. 1907-19); photo: Visko Hatfield.
Read the full article and see more of Heckler's collection here.
October 1 2020:
Intuit Visionary Ball
This year's Intuit Visionary Ball will be held online; you can get your ticket to access the live video stream next Thursday, October 1, here. Tickets range in prices; it is free to view the video stream (while still registering to gain access), but there are also several paid options with lots of perks.
"2020 has been a year of transformation for Intuit. The urgency of our mission—to celebrate the power of outsider art—has heightened. Intuit reaffirmed our commitment to diversity and inclusion. We pivoted from creating intimate, on-site experiences to opening our virtual doors to the country and world with new, online programs. Now, for the first time, Intuit will host a virtual Visionary Ball gala!"
View the Visionary Ball 2020 Program Booklet , and get your tickets now!
November 14 2020:
Slotin Folk Art Auction
An early Howard Finster painting believed to be his largest, yet one of the least well-known of his early masterworks, will be the highlight of Slotin Folk Art Auction's Self-Taught Art Masterpieces on November 14, 2020.
The Buford, Georgia-based auction house has handled the sale of many early Finster pieces, but never one as large as the 1977 painting Chelsea Baptist Church, numbered 641, which measures 103.5 inches wide by 44 inches high including frame. The narrative painting, tractor enamel on Masonite, is centered around the Northwest Georgia church where the preacher-turned-folk-artist ministered from 1950 to 1965.
Chelsea Baptist Church #641, Howard Finster (1977). Tractor enamel on Masonite, 263 x 112 cm (103.5 x 44 in.)
Chelsea Baptist Church prominently depicts congregants arriving at the simple white-frame sanctuary in the pastoral town of Menlo, with Finster standing to the side under a white-bloom-festooned tree inhabited by a dove.
The painting presents many visionary aspects, including a river baptism involving biblical-looking figures, a shepherd tending his sheep and a city of "heavenly mansions."
Chelsea Baptist Church in Menlo, Georgia, US; photo: Slotin Folk Art
The artist gave the painting to the church, where he served the longest in an itinerant career. For decades the monumental painting was displayed behind the Chelsea Baptist pulpit, but it was moved after a baptistery was constructed.
Finster created the painting the year after he had a vision while repairing a bicycle in which a human face appeared in a paint smudge on his fingertip, commanding him to "paint sacred art."
U.S.N. Honey Driper, Sam Doyle (n.d.). Paint on found roofing tin, 70 x 115 cm (27.5 x 45.5 in.
Artwork by Sam Doyle will also be in the auction. His painting U.S.N. Honey Driper depicts a sailor from the Sea Islands who became a war hero when he shot don several Japanese planes at Pearl Harbor. It is one of a number of important works by major African-American artists of the 20th century that will be auctioned at Slotin Folk Art Auction's Self-Taught Art Masterpiece Sale on Nov. 14, 2020.
View Slotin's virtual flipbook to see the artworks available in the auction.
The Gallery of Everything exhibition:
ASAFO
From September 13 to October 4,2020, The Gallery of Everything presents ASAFO, an online exhibition of Asafo flags from Ghana, dating from the 1930s to the 1970s.
Untitled, anonymous (c 1920/30). Stitched, appliquéd and embroidered cotton, 119 x 156 cm (47 x 61 in.)
In the 17th century, on the coast of what is now modern-day Ghana, the Fante people developed a distinctive practice. They organised themselves into the Asafo: military groups with their own numbers, symbols and designs. The now-famous flags created by these artists and image-makers commenced an extraordinary visual practice, today considered to be one of the most vivid and celebratory of 20th century Africa.
Untitled, anonymous (c 1930/40). Stitched, appliquéd and embroidered cotton, 100 x 175 cm (39 x 69 in.)
Asafo flags are adorned with emblems and allegories conjured from folk tales and proverbs. Functioning at funerals and festivities, each allegory aims to express its message with pride and pizzazz. Oral history, mythology and technology are intertwined into each banner, shaping tradition and consciousness.
Untitled, anonymous (c 1930/40). Stitched, appliquéd and embroidered cotton, 115 x 160 cm (45 x 63 in.)
Asafo flags continue to inspire artists, curators and designers – from museum director Gus Casely-Hayford to contemporary artist Kerry James Marshall – and reside in the collections of the National Museum of African Art (Washington), the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York), Quai Branly (Paris) and many more.
Click here to view the digital exhibition.
Raw Vision 106: Out Now
Nellie Mae Rowe's house in Vinings, 1971, photo: Lucinda Bunnen, Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia
Raw Vision #106 features: the art and garden environment of Nellie Mae Rowe (shown above), Gwyneth Rowlands, Joe Coleman, Jean-Marc Renault, Patrick Hackleman, , Monique Mercerat, Albert and La Fabuloserie.
Other Americans know the narrative of the African-American South, but it is mostly colourless without the figuration of black folktales, music and art. The garden environment and drawings of Nellie Mae Rowe colour that narrative, revealing pain and celebrating joy.
In the 1970s, Rowe's small pencil and crayon drawings gave way to more imaginative and complex narratives, which included themes of religion, history and death. A 1980 drawing of a dancer holding red fans – constructed of what look like egg-filled fallopian tubes – suggests Rowe’s own sense of emancipation from her lifetime as a wife and domestic worker.
Text by Charles L Abney.
Order a copy from our online shop. For orders of 10+ issues please email info@rawvision.com for a reduced postage cost.