{"id":14240,"date":"2024-12-19T20:44:05","date_gmt":"2024-12-19T20:44:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/artoday.net\/?p=14240"},"modified":"2024-12-19T20:44:06","modified_gmt":"2024-12-19T20:44:06","slug":"the-year-in-self-taught-artists-2024-expanded-the-canon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artoday.net\/?p=14240","title":{"rendered":"The Year in Self-Taught Artists: 2024 Expanded the Canon"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n\t2024 has been marked by the exponential presence of self-taught artists in museums, galleries, and art fairs. Increasingly sought by collectors from various horizons, represented by a vast community of art dealers, and included in a broader spectrum of art history curriculums, these artists have secured the attention of educators, art critics, and museumgoers\u2014suggesting a new normal as to who counts as an \u201cartist\u201d in the first place.<\/p>\n
\n\tAs a curator at the American Folk Art Museum (AFAM), I have witnessed the expansive networks working assiduously to bring once marginalized artists to the fore. Among them is the Brazilian self-taught artist Madalena Santos Reinbolt, the subject of a retrospective I am developing in collaboration with the Museu de Arte de S\u00e3o Paulo (MASP). Working on an exhibition about the legacy of the Catalan-born psychiatrist Francesc Tosquelles earlier this year, I found myself moved by his belief that institutions\u2014notably museums\u2014always have to fight their \u201cconcentrationist\u201d unconscious, often trapped in their immobility. Self-taught artists help challenge the status quo. Historically, they have triggered reevaluations of artistic heritage and the notion of the masterpiece, deeming every project\u2014big and small, loud and quiet\u2014as worthwhile<\/p>\n
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\u201cProjects: Marlon Mullen\u201d at the Museum of Modern Art, New York<\/h2>\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: \u00a92024 Marlon Mullen\/Collection of Martin and Rebecca Eisenberg\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\n\tMarlon Mullen\u2019s exhibition reups MoMA\u2019s historical commitment to art practices emerging outside of the mainstream, recalling projects as early as the ones under the leadership of its founding director, Alfred H. Barr, such as \u201cAmerican Folk Art: The Art of the Common Man in America, 1750\u20131900in 1932. The Mullen show gathers paintings inspired by the covers of art publications like Art in America<\/em> and Artforum<\/em>\u2014copies of which were donated to NIAD Art, the progressive studio for disabled artists where Mullen has been working for the last forty years. These works join the longstanding tradition of making art about art, raising\u00a0questions about the impact of artistic training, the circulation of images, and peer systems across time and place.<\/p>\n<\/article>\n<\/li>\n
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\u201cJanet Sobel: All-Over\u201d at The Menil, Houston<\/h2>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n
\n\tFocusing on the abstract canvases created in the 1940s by Ukrainian-born, American-based Janet Sobel (1893\u20131968), this bracing exhibition reunited the artist\u2019s major paintings for the first time in over sixty years. Curator Natalie Dup\u00eacher dug into Sobel\u2019s short-lived but meteoric career, which began in 1943 when leading New York dealers, collectors, and artist peers embraced her work. The attention culminated in her first solo show at New York\u2019s Puma Gallery in 1944, and another one at Peggy Guggenheim\u2019s Art of This Century Gallery in 1946. Sobel pioneered what became known as \u201call-over\u201d abstraction. Listen to Dup\u00eacher\u2019s presentation at this year\u2019s Anne Hill Blanchard Uncommon Artists Lecture. [https:\/\/vimeo.com\/919657061?share=copy]<\/p>\n<\/article>\n<\/li>\n
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\u201cMagali Herrera: A Spark of Light in this World\u201d at Collection de l\u2019Art Brut, Lausanne, Switzerland<\/h2>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n
\n\tWhile the art world continues to expand its horizons, specialized museums continue to zealously research, publish, preserve, and explore the next uncovered territories. The Collection de l\u2019Art Brut in Lausanne is a stellar example. It opened to the public in 1976, with the treasured Art Brut collection amassed by Jean Dubuffet. This year, its retrospective of the works of Uruguayan artist Magali Herrera exemplified this museum\u2019s unique approach: investigating and revealing artistic figures who have remained under the radar for far too long. Aligned with Dubuffet\u2019s care for documentation, this presentation includes items from the artist\u2019s personal archives and an active correspondence between Herrera and Dubuffet (from 1967 to 1974), who was fascinated by her writing style. Herrera\u2019s drawings translate an internal cosmogony into lines and dots that are finely executed with Chinese brushes over slow but intensive, nonstop creative sessions. Her images, of solitary landscapes, comprise miniscule dots, and evincing these immersive creative sessions.<\/p>\n<\/article>\n<\/li>\n
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Creative Growth: at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Outsider Art Fair<\/h2>\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: Photo Don Ross. Courtesy SFMOMA.\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\n\tEnthralling works by Judith Scott, Alice Wong, Monica Valentine, and Dan Miller were featured in Expanding the Canon: 50 Years of Creative Growth<\/em> at this year\u2019s New York Outsider Art Fair\u2014the most vibrant, international platform for the self-taught art community. The organization\u2014which supports artists with developmental disabilities\u2014was also celebrated at SFMOMA in an impressive show that highlighted the philosophy of its founders Florence Ludins-Katz and Elias Katz: \u201cthat each person has the right to the richest and fullest development of which (he) is capable. Only then can society reach its fullest potential\u2026 Creativity is a vital living force within each individual.\u201d The project led to a milestone acquisition by SFMOMA.<\/p>\n<\/article>\n<\/li>\n
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The Artists Who Served as Spirit Guides<\/h2>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n
\n\tThree artists who cultivated ties with the spirit world and the otherworldly grounded and guided our scattered paths through 2024. Melvin Way passed away in January, and New York lost its urban shaman, whose intricate, energy-induced and formula-ridden drawings were stashed in his pockets like protective devices. Working under the auspices of her spirit guide Myrninerest, Madge Gill blew our minds at this year\u2019s Venice Biennale with the hallucinatory Crucifixion of the Soul<\/em> (1934), a ten-meter-long ink-on-calico piece, filled with checkerboard architectural spaces across which the pale faces of discarnate women emerged. Lastly, in the insightful exhibition \u201cAnimism, Shamanism, and Art Brut\u201d at Cavin-Morris Gallery in New York, we were mesmerized by the polychrome wood shaman\u2019s mask created ca. 1880 by an unrecorded\/unidentified artist from the new Norton Sound in Alaska.<\/p>\n<\/article>\n<\/li>\n
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Arte Popular<\/em> Hit the Global Stage<\/h2>\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: Photo Juan Pablo\/Courtesy CRISIS Gallery, Lima\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\n\t2024 was a remarkable year for arte popular<\/em> from Brazil. The term, roughly equivalent to \u201cfolk art\u201d or \u201cself-taught art,\u201d similarly refers to works produced apart from art school conventions.<\/p>\n
\n\tWhen the Modernist movement emerged in Brazil in the 1920s, artists and writers from the cultural elite began to incorporate Indigenous and Black influences into their work. The cultural production of marginalized groups became valued as a source for shaping national identity, and a model for finding liberation from European traditions. Last year\u2019s S\u00e3o Paulo Biennale featured exquisite examples by Bispo do Rosario and Aurora Cursino dos Santos. This year\u2019s Venice Biennale, curated by MASP\u2019s Adriano Pedrosa, featured works by Rubem Valentim and artists from the Yanomami Indigenous Territory.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, gallerists bold arte popular <\/em>works to art fairs in 2024. The Armory saw works by H\u00e9lio Melo courtesy Almeida & Dale and Jos\u00e9 Antonio da Silva courtesy Galeria Esta\u00e7\u00e3o\u2019s Armory booth<\/em> (we are impatiently waiting his 2025 retrospective at the Mus\u00e9e de Grenoble). At Art Basel Miami, standouts include works by Jos\u00e9 Ad\u00e1rio, Chico da Silva, and Heitor dos Prazeres at Galatea\u2019s booth as well as Maria Lira at Gomide & Co. And David Zwirner not only brought works by Amadeo Luciano Lorenzato to various fairs, but hosted a solo show in New York.<\/p>\n<\/article>\n<\/li>\n
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The Pompidou Published an Art Brut Edition of Les Cahiers du Mus\u00e9e national d\u2019art moderne<\/em><\/h2>\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: De Agostini via Getty Images\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\n\tThis rich issue of the Cahiers<\/em>, edited by scholar Barbara Safarova and Centre Pompidou\u2019s Chief Curator of the Contemporary Collections, Sophie Duplaix, provides a preliminary reflection on filmmaker Bruno Decharme\u2019s exceptional donation to the Centre Pompidou in 2021 of 921 works by 242 of the most canonical Art Brut artists\u2014a gift of unimaginable scope given the rarity of the works, one that adds fresh and unexpected layers to the museum\u2019s collection. This publication traces the evolution of Art Brut through the eyes of the collector; the works of mediumistic female artists; Art Brut\u2019s geographical developments; the intersections of Art Brut and folk art; \u201cbrut\u201d writings; and the art of Auguste Forestier, whose sculptures were created while confined at the Saint-Alban psychiatric hospital and would spark Jean Dubuffet\u2019s seminal Art Brut collection.<\/p>\n<\/article>\n<\/li>\n
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Four Women Lent Landmark to Support of Self-Taught Artists<\/h2>\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: Photo Arturo S\u00e1nchez\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\n\tFour women stood out this year for their support of self-taught artists. Critic Roberta Smith announced her retirement from The New York Times<\/em> in March; over her remarkable career, she persistently introduced self-taught artists\u2014Bill Traylor, James Castle, John Dunkley, Morris Hirshfield, Bispo do Rosario, Frank Jones, James \u2018Son Ford\u2019 Thomas\u2014to new audiences, expanding with enduring impact the frontiers of art. Collector Audrey B. Heckler, who passed away in the Spring, left behind a trailblazing collection composed of the best examples in the field, many of which will be exhibited in 2026 at AFAM. The book Moderno Contemporan\u00eao Popular Brasileiro<\/em> (2024) celebrated Brazilian gallerist and collector Vilma Eid, who championed arte popular<\/em> over the last forty years. Art dealer and art historian Jane Kallir announced the opening, in November, of The Kallir Research Institute\u2019s new headquarters, dedicated to expanding the scholarship of artists championed by Otto Kallir at Galerie St. Etienne. Aside from pursuing her grandfather\u2019s legacy with Grandma Moses, she championed Henry Darger, the artists of Gugging, Ilija Bosilj-Basicevic, Josef Karl R\u00e4dler, Morris Hirshfield and John Kane.<\/p>\n<\/article>\n<\/li>\n
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\u201cMary Sully: Native Modern,\u201d at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York<\/h2>\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: Photo Paul Lachauer. \u00a9 The Metropolitan Museum of Art.\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\n\tMary Sully\u2014born Susan Mabel Deloria on the Standing Rock Reservation in South Dakota\u2014was a reclusive Yankton Dakota self-taught artist who created highly distinctive work informed by her Native American and settler ancestry from the 1920s through the 1940s. The enchanting and revelatory \u201cMary Sully: Native Modern\u201dgathers 25 drawings, primarily graphite and colored pencil triptychs that she referred to as \u201cpersonality prints,\u201d each evoking different Euro-American celebrities of her time. Sully\u2019s grandson described her as \u201ca solo artist in every sense of the word,\u201d and accordingly, her works having remained unseen by almost anyone beyond her family during her lifetime. As Holland Cotter observed in the New York Times<\/em>, she was \u201cpersonally caught between cultures, ethnicities, social classes, gender expectations, hostage to a still crushing colonial history.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/article>\n<\/li>\n
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\u201cThe Way I See It: Selections from the KAWS Collection\u201d at the Drawing Center, New York<\/h2>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n
\n\tWhile KAWS\u2019s multifaceted creative endeavors are embedded in a vast community of peers, artists, collectors, gallerists, and museum professionals, his collecting activities (which he started 30 years ago) have been a far more private affair\u2014until now. This exhibition is presented as a corrective lens for his ideal art history book, showing his major support of self-taught artists and interest ina vast range of artistic trajectories. It features unforgettable works by artists from H.C. Westermann, Robert Crumb, Adolf W\u00f6lfli, Joe Coleman, Susan Te Kahurangi King, and Peter Saul to Jane Dickson, Helen Rae, Anton van Dalen, Martin Ram\u00edrez, Yuichiro Ukai, and graffiti pioneers like FUTURA 2000, Lee Qui\u00f1ones, and DAZE. KAWS\u2019s support raises questions about the traditional importance of artistic training.<\/p>\n
\n\tIn the catalogue, the artist explains his proclivity: \u201cthere are thousand ways to exist as an artist. I kind of hate categories and labels. A lot of people tend to get focused on hierarchy\u2014what is \u2018art world,\u2019 what is \u2018commercial world,\u2019 what is \u2018outsider\u2019 or \u2018self-taught.\u2019 I never look at things like this.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/article>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n
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