Good Night

Robert Mapplethorpe, Fish, 1985

Happy B-DAY Cody!

Robert Mapplethorpe, Tattoo Artist's Son, 1984

Tristan Tzara, René Crevel, (Rectified Man Ray) 1928

Frida Kahlo

What the Water Gave Me, 1938

R.I.P. Richard Artschwager

Live in Your Head, 2002

Alex Da Corte

Wildflower, 2012

Derek Boshier

Frightened Cowboy, 1980

Smurf Scruff

Q & A with Hudson, Feature Inc. @ OAF13

One booth at the fair really stood out stylistically from all the rest, it was curated by Hudson at Feature, Inc. and had beautiful abstract works on paper from India. My favorite were the Korwa drawings. These drawings are made by men, women and children who are illiterate and who all get drunk (children too) on wine made from flowers. They communicate through these gestural line scribbles and wiggles that happen through a kind of trance. It is their primary form of written expression. I also found out that they are prisoners in their own land - they are not allowed to leave :-(. Scott: Why did you choose to show the anonymous Tantra paintings and the Korwa drawings? Hudson: Of all the stuff that I show that I thought would really qualify were the Tantra paintings. I’ve been interested in the Korwa drawings for about 10 years so it was a perfect opportunity. I thought about Tom of Findland.. S: Oh yeah.. H: ..and in some ways you could say that he fits in here but he was trained, but his work is outside of and has been outside of the mainstream art world by most peoples points of view so that would be one way to say to bring him in but I would rather, it was a little close for me. I thought it would be better to show something that was more outside. S: I think it’s interesting that the Tantra paintings are anonymous. Why is that? H: They’re anonymous because they’re historical images and the people who paint them, some who are artists, some who are not, are not the people who generated the original images. Those images have existed for centuries and every time that anyone in the practice of Tantra represents that image, they try and have it be as true as possible to the original. So they can’t claim ownership. S: How do you feel about the label in general, “outsider art?” H: Not a good idea but it sort of reflects the way the culture divides things. Labels like that are bad but labels help people at the same time discern difference or distinguish particularities of genres. But the notion of ‘outsider art’ makes you think of ‘insider art’ and the dynamic between those two things is bad.

Q & A with the artist, Brent Green

This past weekend was a BLAST. I got to host the Outsider Art Fair via the special title of Social Media Ambassador. At the fair I met some of the artists exhibiting and posted simple Q & A's on Instagram (hugscotty). This interview was recorded just before the closing of the fair last night. Brent Green represented by the NYC gallery, Andrew Edlin, like all the other artists that I saw at the fair and some whom I actually got to meet in person were all very inspiring. I've always admired Brent's artwork and it was a real treat to get to meet him in person. Brent lives and works in a cabin somewhere in the middle of PA. I bet he has a cheap rent! Scott: Being self-taught, where did you find inspiration? Brent: I think basically it’s the same. You’re looking at the world and you’re trying to say something that you want to hear said and that’s I think the way basically everyone approaches it. S: Whether you’re self-taught or not, like it doesn’t really matter.. B: Right, it doesn’t make a difference. S: Or, maybe the academic education can actually hinder your creativity or make it feel forced or something? B: I don’t know, I didn’t come from that so, I can’t speak to it. I think it does probably categorize your thinking in a way that if you don’t go through academia your thinking isn’t so categorized. You don’t put on your painter’s cap when you sit down to paint, you’re still just a fucking dude you know and, if you think you can paint this better with a fucking muffler, that’s what you pick up (referring to the artwork next to him by the artist Thornton Dial) other than that I don’t think it makes a difference. I think that you know, you probably went to art school because art is what moved you and I didn’t go to college because literature really moved me and a library card is free. Which is way less expensive than going to school. So I looked at school and I looked at a library card – the library card was FREE. ☺ (laughs) S: In the beginning when you started making art, what was the most influential thing? B: I had a really naive notion that I would be able to make something so wonderful that I wouldn’t have to go to work the next day. I didn’t have any idea beyond that; I didn’t have any kind of plan or business plan or schedule or mode of getting to there, it was just this vague idea that I could make something so wonderful that I wouldn’t have to go dig holes to put up fences for Lockhart the next day. I got really lucky I got a creative capital grant when I was 26 and then from that I had gallery representation and museum shows and all of that kind of crap and art wasn’t a part of my life before that at all. I got the grant just because of my age and because I didn’t go to college so I qualified for it when I applied for it. But it’s exactly the same as if you go to school and you get out of it, you still need this kind of one big hand up, this big bit of luck. So, I don’t think it’s that much different. Do you? S: Umm..? B: You do because you feel burnt out by it. S: I don’t really feel burnt-out.. maybe a little ;-) B: Dude, I just bought that Hemingway drawing (pointing to a colored pencil drawing framed on the wall by John Byam). S: OMG, Dude that’s awesome!! B: Thanks (high-five). It’s the first piece of art that I’ve ever bought. S: Did you see that I posted it? B: No!! You did! I bought it. ☺ S: Man, that’s so awesome.. I wish I could buy something. That’s really really cool. B: Pre-suicide too, otherwise, it would be.. S: (confused) Oh wow. B: I just mean that otherwise, it would be really gross (laughs)..

OAF 2013 Opening Night

Last night was so much fun that I could barely get out of bed today ;-) The Outsider Art Fair is a real treat! After seeing so many contemporary art fairs - this one feels so fresh and authentic. I love the new location at the old DIA center and it felt much tighter than previous years. The quality of the work was very even throughout and nothing felt like it was trying to be "outsider". You will see some awesome works by the big names in outsider art like Henry Darger, Eugene von Bruenchenhein and Lee Godie as well as some new very cool additions to this year's fair like the presentation by Feature Inc. of anonymous tantra paintings. One of my favorite's was a solo booth by Michael Patterson-Carver at Laurel Gitlen Gallery. So much to see.. I will post more pictures tomorrow.. Don't miss this fair! And a great review by Roberta Smith in the NYTimes.

Juliana looking HAM!

Lee Godie

Morton Bartlett

HolyHakan looking handsome!

M. Patterson-Carver

Gayleen Aiken