Lemme talk to you about folk art. Can we do that for a bit? We should totally chat about that.
Kristen and I went out to the Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore this weekend. I’d never been before. She’d never been before. My never having been there before is slightly less excusable as the museum opened while I was in art school in Baltimore City… though perhaps a museum that highlights the artwork of artists that have either never intended to be artists or attended any formal art training while in the midst of paying tens of thousands of dollars to attend with that intent seemed somewhat unattractive.
In any case, I had another reason to go ever since the last time we played in Chicago: we’d met a man who had a piece in the museum. And having met Wayne Kusy at an open mic, I was surprised to find his all-consumingly, obsessively-constructed toothpick sculpture of the Lusitania lit softly in the almost sterile confines of a modern glass and concrete building. The placards next to the pieces write pretty extensively on the imagery and import and symbology behind the pieces – many of these placards are written posthumously, some written without knowledge of WHO the artist is, I’m sure few if any of the opinions and in-depth analysis of the pieces had anything to do with the original desires, beliefs and intents of the artists – and the stink of art school critiques with their desperate pleas legitimizing their half-thought-out works was think on the walls.
Kristen and I catch a glimpse of ourselves in the shattered glass mosaics on the sides of the walls of the Visionary Art Museum in Baltmore, MD. An example of the work in the central hall of the Visionary Art Museum – though arguably not very indicitive of the work overall. I was just pleased to see a giant frog staring down at me. Pre-Halloween Friday Kristen and I and a couple of other friends went to the Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore, MD. I’ve become quite opinionated about it since going… and though it was really cool I took issue with certain parts of the presentation, and certainly issue with some of the liberties taken with descriptions. It also simply made me CRAVE the City Museum in Saint Louis, MO.
I liked the work. The more I’ve Lived, the less surprised I am that such fantastic works are built in basements and in attics and in backyards, away from prying eyes and juried galleries. I prize the skills I have, and much of the formal training has honed an innate sense and ability – but I have no illusions that without art school my talents would have existed, and perhaps without the cynicism instilled by that environment they’d have flourished entirely differently. Hell, in the music world, trained musicians look at ME as proof they didn’t need all those years of schooling.
And so, to put that snooty, over-educated veneer of critique and analysis on top of some of the most passionate intense work comes across as incredibly disingenuous. It feels like the “Real” arts community trying to put these artists in their place, like their doing these people a favour to give them a “real” artist’s words to make their work legitimate.
I’m cynical, I know. But it was a hefty price tag for a building whose first floor is made up of a gift shop focused on Baltimore Hon Kitsch – an ignoble artform all its own – which I think further demeans the work on the walls and floors inside the museum… I mean, what do pink and purple flamingos and gay birthday cards and beehive hairdos have to do with elaborate smashed-glass eggs and tiny motorized Anubi, horse head dresses made by long-dead schizophrenics and anal, tightly drawn illumination-like drawings of daemons with their obviously Boschian references? The latter doesn’t elevate the former, and I’d argue that the former completely demeans the latter.
I flash back to City Museum – folk art at its finest – a Living breathing communal artists’ creation extruded organically by welders and sculptors and mechanical engineers. And there is pain and joy and beauty there – and recognition of tradition and sense of intent… but it’s not possessive or pretentious…. It shares and educates.
And I’m reading too much into it, and I take things the wrong way, and I’m generally a grumpy human – and on top of it all I still encourage people to go see the museum, but I urge you to take it all in with a sack full of salt.
