A 1993 assemblage by Thornton Dial exemplifies exactly why he belongs in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s 20th Century Modern and Contemporary galleries, without any caveats like “southern,” “folk,” or “outsider” typically assigned to the artist.

Forrest Muelrath
Forrest Muelrath writes about art, local news and other events. You can also find his writing at BOMB, Lacanian Ink, Canarsie Courier and others.
In Jacolby Satterwhite’s New Exhibition, a Blessed Road between Heaven and Hell, Body and Empire
Jacolby Satterwhite’s art is nearly the opposite of the fascist, illusionist US government regime we currently live under, and is far more radical — creating something that could otherwise never be.
Visions of Heaven in a Gallery Below Ground
In Hayley Silverman’s new show, shadow-objects and supernatural beings drift through a papaya and strawberry-pink mist.
Toppling the White Man on the Pedestal
Doreen Garner and Kenya (Robinson)’s two-person exhibition examines the bloody history of white male supremacy and evokes the notion of karmic retribution.
How Renaissance Painting Smoldered with a Little Known Hallucinogen
Looking at depictions of St. Anthony in the paintings of Renaissance masters, the influence of the disease of ergotism on the history of art starts to become clear.