#american visionary art museum

[argyleheir]

Recovery, by Anonymous

From the American Visionary Art Museum

This lone figure was carved from a single apple tree trunk. It was created as a self-portrait by a British mental patient who had a distinctive concave chest from years of tuberculosis. His doctor remembered that he took no interest in making art until he encountered a fallen apple tree during a walk on the hospital grounds and asked for help in dragging it indoors and getting simple carving tools. At that time, there was hospital prohibition for mental patients handling what could be 'lethal' instruments. However, Edward Adamson, a pioneer in using art to treat mental illness, persuaded the authorities to relax this rule, and trust the patient. The result, 'Recovery,' was a vindication of Edward's remarkable insight. For a month, the patient whittled the wood down to this figure. The artist, in his thirties, committed suicide about two years after leaving the hospital. This applewood figure is his only known work of art.

Source

[arthistoryanimalia]

For #WorldGorillaDay 🦍:

Dean Millien

Tin Thing Gorilla, 2011

Aluminum foil

On display at last year’s “ABUNDANCE: Too Much, Too Little, Just Right” at AVAM

[annacase]

Noche Crist, Devil's Mirror, 1977, mixed media

[dogandcatcomics]

#repost @the_avam American Visionary Art Museum (Baltimore, Maryland, USA). I do not know the details of this work but appreciate the canine and feline representation. Thanks to @robwilsonwork for the tip and the photo.

[tricksterontheweb]

" The moon was shining, and it drew my attention.

He showed me that animal, on that ring around the moon.

I was playing out in the streets,

'cause i wasnt old enough to go to school.

Children said, 'Minnie, what are you looking at?'

I said 'I'm looking at those elephants going around the moon .'

They laughed at me, 'Minnie's crazy, we don't see no elephants'

I thought everybody could see them.

I wasn't like the other children.

One night I had a dream

This voice spoke to me

'Why dont you draw, or die'

I said 'is that it?

My.' "

-Minnie Evans

[alternativeproject]

Very Cool stuff at the American visionary art museum

[transmissionsfromthebattlefield]

Swiss-Fig-Havarti

Ah, 2023. You came too fast.

I haven’t had the time to sit down and pump out a blog post in a few days. That’s because I was spending quality time with a certain someone who’s long anticipated presence finally emitted in my house for ten days and granted me the satisfaction I had been craving for a good three months. So here’s the obligatory recap.

Overall, Max’s visit was an incredible time. Most of it consisted of me dragging him places to make him adjust quickly to the Pennsylvania landscape. We hoped for snow, but we instead were granted weather in the sixties on some days. Some of our time was spent inside, including for top secret recording sessions, the motive of which will be revealed to the public in a few months. (Ahahahaahahahah shit.) But most of our time was an excuse for me to subliminally flaunt my taken status to the world at large.

For example, my—or should I say our—last meal of the year was at Little Elephant, the best locally owned Thai place around. I got the yellow curry talay special, pictured below. Pure, earthy bliss. These are the types of things I enjoy.

We headed over to good ol’ Dave’s house for his new year’s eve bash afterwards. (You already saw photos from that night here or here.) Dave is a friend of our family, and his musical infatuations manifest in record parties where licorice pizzas are played by the side in the living room and charcuterie is bountiful in the dining room. (A lot of good food was eaten in those ten days, which should be obvious by now.) We effectively got to DJ for almost the entire night with zero vocal disapproval from anyone else, permitting me to infect my poor boyfriend’s ears with NoMeansNo and Alice Donut and the like. (Luckily, he got a kick out of them.) We danced to Captain Beefheart and overall had a great time. It was probably the most solid NYE party I could imagine. And I hate parties!

Had we stayed home we probably would’ve been watching Sia, who I didn’t even know people still gave a crap about, and David Byrne (hi, David Byrne) being excruciatingly awkward together on TV. We had to wait a few days to get to get that experience via YouTube and astounded friends, and we were geographically separated by that time. But I’m still mentioning it because I am not over how we allow such poor decision making to determine our television programming! Do you really think anyone wants to see Paris Hilton barely sing? At least, it doesn’t sound like anything’s coming out of her microphone there. I hate this culture.

We spent the first day of the new year sticking our tongues out at said culture in good old Baltimore. Our first priority was the American Visionary Art Museum, a current staple of preserving the city’s weirdo spirit. We spent most of our time in the gift shop ogling all the weird crap they have up for sale. We got matching JFK and Jackie O masks that we forgot to take photos with and a lot of other, smaller things.

The majority of the times I’ve been there were when I was much smaller than I even am now. Only one of the exhibits had been changed out since my last visit a few years ago, and a good amount of the museum is permanent. It felt so much the same that I felt almost out of place. This is no dismissal of the museum, and I recommend a visit to those who get the chance to stop in. But I felt overgrown there. The museum, which highlights ‘outsider’ and self-trained artists, revolves around the power and persuasion of innocence. I’m not so innocent anymore! It felt so strange even existing alone in such a complex, never mind leading a boyfriend around. I’m interpreting it as an experiential testament to how far I’ve come. And that’s a good thing. Living away for school, taking in things as myself, getting to share time with a worthy male companion—it’s what I wanted, and I’m happy to be having it. Getting to indulge in the latter after months of anxiety and anticipation was refreshing more than anything.

The rest of our excursion time was less philosophical. We stuck some stickers advertising Jerry Casale’s newest single outside the Sound Garden after dinner at our old Baltimore haunt, Papi’s, which received a much warmer reception from the man of the hour than I expected. You see, my boyfriend is San Diego born and raised, and he is a diehard foodie. If anyone is game to judge east coast Mexican fare, it’s him. He ended up raving to our waitress about how their street tacos beat some of the places back home in terms of their authenticity, which was kind of hilarious. Hey, it’s a point for Baltimore!

The next day we trucked through Amish country to get to the Record Connection up in Ephrata, where we dropped off a few of my boyfriend’s CDs as well as some by Monsieur Herr. Hopefully some “Pennsylvania Dutch” fraulein or freakoff hick gets their state altered by one of ‘em.

Max flew home on Wednesday. I adjusted quickly to not having him around—the internet does wonders, I guess—but I still miss him. Long distance relationships are wack. In a week I’ll be back in Kent, and I can’t be more excited. All the important emails are sent, the section of Music as a World Phenomenon I’m registered for STILL doesn’t have an assigned professor, and most of the anxiety is gone. If everything goes according to plan, I’ll see him again in due time. I’ll still long, but who wouldn’t?

It felt totally crucial to have him around, and I’m relieved that our time together was so enriching for us both. Yet it did not feel like some dramatic, radical upheaval to have a boyfriend at my side. In fact, it felt completely natural.

Which was exactly the way I wanted it to feel.

Happy 2023!

[3amcynic]

Just got back from Baltimore. I highly recommend the American Visionary Art Museum. Kinetic sculptures? Yes.Upcycled materials? Yep. Disturbing imagery? Oh yeah. Severe mental illness channelled into compelling works of art? You bet! A display dedicated to flatulence located next to the bathrooms? Did you really need to ask? All this and probably the greatest (and most affordable) museum gift shop ever. Do yourself a favor and go.

[etakeh]

[persistentvisionz]

December 21, 2022

The American Visionary Art Museum - Baltimore, MD

[somenewdelight]

seen outside the american visionary art museum

[neverwear]

Celebrating the year 2024 with a 25% off sale on anything in the Neverwear shop- you don't need a code, it will come off at check out automatically. For some examples: this sale will make the $75 signed-by-Neil Dickens prints $56.25! a Mad Sweeney lucky coin will be $11.25 the embroidered Neil hat will be $14.21 Grateful for you, we donated to Meals on Wheels, BARCS (animal shelter in Baltimore) 2 public libraries, NAACP, American Visionary Art Museum, and more. Sale up until midnight ET Tues Jan 2, 2024 Here's a photo of me and the boss from ten years ago (I think?)

www.neverwear.net

[arthistoryanimalia]

For #WorldBearDay:

White Spirit Bears by Apache elder Judy Tallwing (b. 1945), 2012. Resin/silver/garnet/sterling/acrylic/copper/diamonds on canvas. From American Visionary Art Museum's "The Secret Life of Earth" show in 2019.

BTW "Spirit Bear" aka "Ghost Bear" aka Moksgm'ol isn't a Polar Bear; it's a rare white morph (NOT albino) of the Kermode Bear, a subspecies of American Black Bear (Ursus americanus kermodei) endemic to coastal British Columbia. It's BC's official mammal & sacred to the region's First Nations peoples.

Mother and cub at Spirit Bear Lodge, Klemtu, BC. Image: Wikimedia Commons.

[icarus-suraki]

No, you know what? While I'm all fired up about modern art and outsider art, let me introduce you to the works of James Hampton.

Pictured above is his monumental Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations' Millennium General Assembly.

With scant education and no formal art education, James Hampton made these pieces out of his intense religious fervor and his own desire to create:

In 1950, Hampton rented a garage on 7th street in northwest Washington [DC]. Over the next 14 years, Hampton built a complex work of religious art inside the garage with various scavenged materials such as aluminum and gold foil, old furniture, pieces of cardboard, light bulbs, jelly jars, shards of mirror and desk blotters held together with tacks, glue, pins and tape. The complete work consists of 180 objects, many of them inscribed with quotes from the Book of Revelation. The centerpiece of the exhibit is a throne, seven feet tall, built on the foundation of an old maroon-cushioned armchair with the words "Fear Not" at its crest. The throne is flanked by dozens of altars, crowns, lecterns, tablets and winged pulpits. Wall plaques on the left bear the name of apostles and those on the right list various biblical patriarchs and prophets such as Abraham and Ezekiel. The text The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations' Millennium General Assembly was written on the objects in Hampton's handwriting.

He constructed all his pieces from materials he found or scavenged himself, "such as aluminum and gold foil, old furniture, pieces of cardboard, light bulbs, jelly jars, shards of mirror and desk blotters held together with tacks, glue, pins and tape."

It's not clear if Hampton himself regarded himself as an artist, a visionary, a prophet, or none of the above. His work, however, is regarded as art in the same way that Michelangelo's Pieta is regarded as art: art of a religious subject or concept.

He also "kept a 108-page loose-leaf notebook titled St James: The Book of the 7 Dispensation. Most of the text was written in an unknown script that remains undeciphered. ... Some of the text was accompanied by notes in English in Hampton's handwriting. In the notebook, Hampton referred to himself as St. James with the title 'Director, Special Projects for the State of Eternity' and ended each page with the word 'Revelation'."

The art was not discovered until after Hampton's death in 1964, when the owner of the garage, Meyer Wertlieb, came to find out why the rent had not been paid. He knew that Hampton had been building something in the garage. When he opened the door, he found a room filled with the artwork. Hampton had kept his project secret from most of his friends and family. His relatives first heard about it when his sister came to claim his body. When Hampton's sister refused to take the artwork, the landlord placed an advertisement in local newspapers. Ed Kelly, a sculptor, answered the advertisement and was so astounded by the exhibit, he contacted art collector Alice Denney. Denney brought art dealers Leo Castelli and Ivan Karp, and artist Robert Rauschenberg, to see the exhibit in the garage. Harry Lowe, the assistant director of the Smithsonian Art Museum, told the Washington Post that walking into the garage "was like opening Tut's tomb."

His work is now on display at the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

[mybeingthere]

Prints by Alison Saar (b 1956)

“Alison Saar’s decades-long explorations of the African American experience as filtered through her personal symbolism connect to today’s essential conversations around racial reckoning and cultural belonging,” said Amy Gilman, director of the Chazen. “The museum believes this visionary work is crucial viewing for all of our diverse communities and audiences.”

Saar, who is based in Los Angeles, where she was born and raised, is known for her incisive sculptures, multimedia installations, and printmaking that reflect a broad range of creative influences, including ancient Greek and African forms and American folk art. In all of Saar’s wide-ranging work the artist has unflinchingly tackled complex personal and political subject matter with an eye towards accessibility and meaningful exchange.

https://www.artandobject.com/.../powerful-prints-alison...

[apatosaurus]

At the American Visionary Art Museum. I have become that middle aged parent with no decorum about taking pictures with my family.