What did John Frederick Kensett, a 19th-century artist who was part of the Hudson River School, have in common with Thomas Matteson, a blanket chest-maker from Vermont?
folk art
Posted inArt
In ‘Self-Taught Genius,’ a History of Label-Teasing Art Forms
In 1964, Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart famously noted, with regard to what exactly constituted “obscenity,” “I know it when I see it.” Similarly, among some art historians, collectors and other experts, just what can or should be considered “folk art” often has been a subject of criteria-questioning debate.
Posted inArt
Tom Sachs’s Pointless Americana
PARIS — In a search for art that reacts to the inequalities of globalization, must art lose touch with the sort of grace that exceeds the hand, a grace that couldn’t be anything but artificial and technological?
Posted inArt
When Outsider Art and Christmas Collide
It’s easy to get obsessive around the holidays, what with the frantic shopping and cheerful imbibing and decorations to be placed. But some take it a long step further.
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A Visit to an Overlooked Folk Art Cave of Crystals
MEMPHIS — Secreted in a cemetery in Memphis is a meditative work of 1930s folk art, a man-made cave created from five tons of quartz crystal and a unique process of turning concrete to wood.
Posted inOpinion
An Incredible Archive of American Folk Music
“If America disappeared off the face of the Earth today, the greatest single cultural loss would be blues, jazz, hip-hop, R&B, rock-and-roll … ”
Posted inOpinion
A Short But Succinct Survey of the Current Hand Turkey Stratosphere
Hand turkey. You know you’ve made one. And if you haven’t, well, perhaps it’s time you did.
Posted inArt
Folk Art Meets Global Aspirations in a Victorian Curiosity Shop
SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS — “Wow bizzarro!” I hear a visitor exclaim with a delighted grin as they walk out the front door of the San Angel Folk Art gallery. The venue is one of those quirky finds one relishes during an art tour in a new city. It offers a colorful breath of fresh air to a predominating white cube aesthetic, and a friendly alternative to the “take ourselves too seriously” attitude of many in the contemporary gallery world.
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The Internet’s Grandma Moses?
On the internet exhibition space The State, a Tumblr-based website, artist Chris Collins has published “tyepilot.com”. The text and image-based essay riffs off the artist’s discovery of a hidden cache of spam images advertising work-from-home internet jobs. Tyepilot’s images are remarkably reminiscent of the trends of contemporary internet art, recycling the visual tropes of the early internet, from bad photo manipulation to fake lens flare. The images are fascinating, but even more interesting is our fascination for the lost artifacts of the internet, and the vagueness of their sources and creators. Could finds of these semi-anonymous digital artifacts constitute the folk art of the internet age? Is Tyepilot the Grandma Moses of the 21st century?
Posted inArt
Imperfection Is the New Perfection
Lately, I’ve been staring a lot at men’s crotches. But not for the reason you’re probably thinking. I’ve been on a hunt for people who wear their jeans until they are completely un-wearable. This hunt has led me to construction workers, squatter punks, and hipsters, all of which so far are men. I’ve been saving these masterpieces from the trash heap by collecting them from their makers and am stitching them into patchwork wall hangings or meshing them with icons of popular culture. Which brings me back to the crotch staring.
