HAMPTONS ART HUB: Outsider Art Fair Unveils A New Look and Location

1/31/2013


Outsider Art Fair Unveils a New Look and Location

January 31, 2013 By Pat Rogers

The Outsider Art Fair is shaking things up for 2013. This year's fair features a new location and new management. The fair will be held in Chelsea at the former Dia Foundation building. Its new producer is art dealer Andrew Edlin under the auspices of Under Wide Open Arts. Remaining steady is a focus on self-taught and outsider artists. Also continuing are programs deepening the experience of the fair.

The Outsider Art Fair opens tonight with a preview from 6 to 9 p.m. The fair continues from Feb 1 to 3 at Center 548 at 548 West 22nd Street. Presenting art are over 40 exhibitors from New York City, the international community and galleries located across the United States.

International galleries hail from Switzerland, England (London), Haiti, Japan (Tokyo) and Belgium (Brussels).
New York City-based galleries include Vito Schnabel, Galerie St. Etienne, Pure Vision Arts, Fountain Gallery, Kinz + Tillou Fine Art, Ricco Maresca Gallery, Laurel Gitlen and others.

Accompanying the Outsider Art Fair is a full slate of programming and special events. These include lectures taking place at the fair and a symposium held at the American Folk Art Museum at Lincoln Center. Each presentation features several speakers.

Topics include "Voyages - Artists photographed by Mario Del Curto," "Rewriting the History of Art Brut: The Case of Gaston Chaissac," "Uncommon Artists. The Anne Hill Blanchard Symposium," "Women's Mad Art," "Agnes Richter's Jacket: Enigma, Talisman, Narrative," and "A Bridge Between Art Worlds."

New for the Outsider Art Fair are guest curatorial projects and special events. Of special note is an exhibition of photographs by Mario Del Curto and the related lecture presentation, "Voyages," taking place tonight. Del Curto is the inaugural winner of the Geneviève Roulin Tribute award presented by the Outsider Art Fair. The talk also includes art historian Céline Muzelle.

Based in Switzerland, Del Curto has lifted his camera to document self-taught and Art Brut artists worldwide for the last 30 years, according to the Outsider Art Fair. During his talk, Del Curto will discuss artists he has met and unique aspects of their works.

Also worth noting is an exhibition presenting Renaldo Kuhler's fantasy country Rocaterrania. Kuhler has spent around 50 years visually portraying a detailed world populated by hundreds of characters, cities, a distinct culture and their own language.

Kuhler's imaginary sovereign nation was the subject of the feature-length documentary “Rocaterrania” by Brett Ingram. The film premiered in 2009. A show including Kuhler's art opened that same year at the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore, MD.

Another highlight is a historical survey presented by Galerie St. Etienne (Booth 4.8). Presented in four sections, the art exhibited is made by "the most significant self-taught European and American artists of the past century," according to an exhibition description.

The ambitious exhibition will highlight the following historical periods and its artists:

The European artists "discovered" in France by Wilhelm Uhde and presented by the Museum of Modern Art in the thirties. Artists include Camille Bombois and Louis Vivin. Their American contemporaries featured in the 1942 book They Taught Themselves. Artists include Morris Hirshfield, John Kane and Grandma Moses.

The Art Brut artists of Europe fostered by Jean Dubuffet. Artists include Aloise Corbaz, Madge Gill, Augustin Lesage, Friedrich Schroder-Sonnenstern, Scottie Wilson, Adolf Wolfli and Carlo Zinelli.

The American "outsiders" achieving prominence in the last quarter century. Artists include Henry Darger, William Hawkins, Martin Ramirez and Bill Traylor.

Laurel Gitlen (New York City) and Sorry We're Closed (Brussels, Belgium) is partnering to present a solo exhibition of Michael Patterson-Carver. The presentation will include traditional drawings by Patterson-Carver as well as ink on cardboard drawings that the artist uses as protest signs in public.

Patterson-Carver art is part of collections held by the American Folk Art Museum (New York, NY), the City of Paris Permanent Collection (Paris, France), FRAC Bretagne (Châteaugiron, France) and the Museum of Everything (London, England).

Also exhibiting is The Fountain Gallery. The New York City gallery has represented artists with mental illness since 2000. At the Outsider Art Fair, it is presenting a group show of its artists
in Booth 4.9A. Included are Dick Lubinsky (1933-2001), Keith Pavia and Robin Taylor.

Lubinsky's work came to light when his niece was cleaning out Lubinsky's packed-to-the rafters Bronx apartment after his death in 2001. His work attracted extensive press coverage as part of the 2009-10 exhibition “Life, Liberty & the Pursuit of Happiness” at the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore. Lubinsky's art was presented in a solo exhibition at the Erie Art Museum in 2010.

"Boy with Flowers" by Dick Lubinsky, 1963

Pavia constructs a world in which characters, words and symbols express an abstract narrative. He seeks to create a vocabulary of archetypes representing psychological aspects of himself and of the larger society. Text is important on a purely visual level.

"Star Fox 3057" by Keith Pavia, 2012.

Taylor's "Shy Jenny" -- a recurring character in her work -- is a depiction of Taylor's experience growing up as a hard-of-hearing child. For the most part, Jenny's face is not visible yet a sense of her hidden expression still comes through.

"Jenny at Camp" by Robin Taylor, 2013.

The Outsider Art Fair was produced for 20 years by Sanford Smith. It was initially held in the Puck Building at Lafayette and Houston. For the last five years, the fair was held at 7 West 34th Street. The Outsider Art Fair was the "first of its kind to focus on self-taught artists and folk traditions," according to an article published by NY Gallerist.

Edlin formed Under Wide Open Arts to purchase the Outsider Art Fair, according to the fair's website. The fair switched hands last year.

BASIC FACTS: The Outsider Art Fair opens with a preview tonight (Jan 31) from 6 to 9 p.m. The fair continues from Feb 1 to 3, 2013 at Center 548, 548 West 22nd Street, New York, NY 10011. Special programming takes place on each day of the fair.

Admission is $50 for the Opening Night Preview, $30 for a Fair Pass (Friday - Sunday) and $20 for a daily pass. www.outsiderartfair.com

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