NY Outsider Art Fair

work by Alan Wayne Bradley aka Haint

I read in an interview somewhere offering advice to impatient listeners of Merriweather Post Pavilion (I'm sorry, I can't remember who said this or where - likely some indie dude at brooklynvegan or pitchfork) that instead of getting all worked up and crazy in the absence of the yet-to-appear, create what you think it will be on you own. (Interviewee had done this for Pavement or something.) So on the subway to the fair, I made a list of what I thought I would see, some drawings, and short story bits. It now stands as a way better representation of the form for me than the complementary catalog.

An older man ducked into my elevator (with a flatscreen showing the news) while I was leaving, and asked me what I thought. Wonderful, I had said, reminded me of work some of my friends do. Well, if your friends are untaught, and they don't go to art school... But what is the line/ age limit for this education? I asked. He went on to say that when he first got into it, it was only psychiatric patients. This is not so anymore. The show had some of that, but also a lot of "folk" art made by untrained artists in "developing" countries. Don't get me wrong, I really appreciated a lot of what I saw, it is just a strange catch-all label.

The appeal (to the buyer) seemed to lie in the creation through eyes untouched by big ideas of/about art. And this was a show for buyers. Peering in on a tour group, I heard the guide use the word "psychedelic" two or three times in the span of thirty seconds.

In the subway tunnel were several breakdancing crews and I asked myself - is this outsider art? Mostly because there was a little kid popping some crazy moves, he was probably taught by his older brothers, not at some proper breakdancing institution. I guess I just don't understand what untaught means now-a-days.

There was a lot of beautiful bead work and embroidery - domestic art taken to nearly perverse extremes. Color fragmented kaleidoscopic throughout. Many repetitive drawing layers. Strange relics. Voodoo. Tiny works made from sock thread ends. An entire roll of canvas depicting (very psychedelic) NYC, leading to a theater/temple. Drawings by an eight year old. Obsessive quilts. Topographic maps. Invented languages. And it was snowing out the windows - glad I went, thanks Ness for the heads up.