Some views from the very pleasant art environment.
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Spontaneous Creation
Home-Made: Contemporary Russian Folk Artifacts, by Vladimir Arkhipov, Fuel Publishing, 304 pages, 180 color pictures, 2006. ISBN 0-9550061-3-9 Folk Archive: Contemporary Popular Art from the UK, by Jeremy Deller and Alan Kane, Book Works, 158 pages, 2005. ISBN 1 870699-81-5 Two recent books from abroad attempt to document the spontaneous art making of ordinary people, one broadly and one eccentrically. Folk Archives, from Britain, covers a wide range of vernacular expression, from protest posters to shop signs. Home Made, also published in Britain, takes a certain kind of ingenuity as its subject, specifically creative responses to the acute scarcity of
Continue readingGetting Religion on Its Own Terms
Coming Home! Self-Taught Artists, the Bible and the American South, edited by Carol Crown, with essays by Paul Harvey, Erika Doss, Hal Fulmer, Babatunde Lawal, Charles Reagan Wilson and N.J. Girardot, Art Museum of the University of Memphis with the University of Mississippi Press, 215 pages, 122 color plates, other color and b&w illustrations, 2004. ISBN 1-57806-659-X
Stereotypes have two inherent flaws: They often state the obvious and, when too generally applied, they become false. But they also are inescapable because, in the proper context, they are true.
Carol Crown’s exhibition and catalog, Coming Home! Self-Taught Artists, the Bible and the American South, can’t help but draw on Bible Belt stereotypes because they reflect a big slice of Southern reality. There is a lot more substance here than in many folk art theme shows, since the Bible really is the force behind a great deal of self-taught art.
Continue readingGems of Soutsider Art
Lovely views from Chicago’s vast South Side repository of commercial creativity.
Continue readingBook Review
Authentic Heaven: The Vernacular Art of Urban Spirituality
How the Other Half Worships, by Camilo Jose Vergara, Rutgers University Press, 286 pages, 2005. ISBN 978-0-8135-3682-8 How The Other Half Worships celebrates one of the great engines of true vernacular expression – religion. The subject is inner-city churches, with an emphasis on the storefront variety. Camilo Jose Vergara has spent years visiting and photographing urban churches and their people, fascinated by their architecture and decoration, by what people do in them and by what they do for people. The book is built around his photographs, but it also gives the church folk a direct voice. The generous quotations from
Continue readingRe-engineered Gyros Project
I’ve rebuilt the Gyros Project to make the pages more consistent and present some more interesting groupings. It’s still 246 of the best gyros pictures anywhere.
Continue readingThe Gyros Project 2007 Calendar
Fast food is not the usual subject of creative vision, but the gyros signs of Chicago are masterpieces of prosaic art. This calendar features photos from The Gyros Project. You can order a copy here.
Continue readingNew Signs
Check out a bunch of great new signs from coast to coast.
Continue readingRoadside Art Online: Signs of a Deep South Drive
The creativity on display from Florida to Chicago can’t be beat. There are two new pages of roadside signage, the second devoted to Albany, Georgia, a great example of how lean times can preserve a certain slice of our visual culture.
Continue readingWestern Avenue Art Gallery: The Suburbs
The same artistic brilliance to be found on Chicago’s city roadsides is abundant in its older suburbs.
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