I learned today of the death of Joe Markevicius, one of my favorite artists. Joe was a “soutsider” artist, a graduate of Gage Park High School and a wizard with pastels. I always thought there was a sadness to Joe at least partly reflected in his choice of subject — mostly Chicago places that had disappeared or were in the process of disappearing.
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Harvey Ford was a prolific producer of drawings when he was in the art program at Joliet’s Stateville Penitentiary, but he also made some impressive sculptures, mostly ceramic, and at least a few papier-mâché. The colors and shapes are more than a match for the intensity of his drawings, many of which he made with burnt matches. Although prison art programs produce a lot of material that is of little interest beyond the cellblock walls, the Stateville program, as its output makes evident, encouraged artists to follow their own creative direction. Ford was a true visionary and a case study
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This week I completed my decade-long record-digitization project, having ripped around 675 vinyl LPs, 150 78s and 1,100-plus 45s. First record ripped, on Dec. 8, 2007: a 78 rpm disk of Milky White Way / Bread of Heaven by the Angelic Gospel Singers, followed by I Can’t Stand Myself When You Touch Me and several other vintage James Brown albums. Last record ripped, on May 19, 2018: A 7-inch record with uplifting public service announcements for young people from the Wayout project, circa 1980s. Immediately before that: three square-dance records complete with calls. I didn’t exactly save the best for
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Frank’s West Side Auto Parts, at Kedzie Avenue and 30th Street, is an art gallery unto itself. Plus, there are other great signs in its vicinity, including more auto parts art and other examples of vernacular creativity.
Continue readingI’m joining with several other collectors for a two-day art sale Friday April 20 (5-8) and Saturday April 21 (11-5) at Intuit, 756 N. Milwaukee Ave., Chicago. The emphasis will be self-taught, folk and outsider art, but there will also be African masks, textiles, kitsch items, contemporary art and other interesting things — lots of cool stuff at very good prices. You can see a flier below, and photos of some of the things I’m planning to bring. It should be a fun event, and We’ll be donating 10% of our proceeds to Intuit. While you’re at Intuit, we’ve got
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Jim Shaw: The Hidden World, edited by Marc-Olivier Wahler. Koenig Books, London, 512 pages, 2014. ISBN: 978-3863355845. Hardcover. Jim Shaw’s collection of religious, political and cultural ephemera, published in 2014 as an exhibition catalog, makes for a great book, especially if your collecting interests align with Shaw’s, as mine not coincidentally do.
Continue readingAs Essential as Dreams: Self-Taught Art from the Collection of Stephanie and John Smither, by Michelle White, with contributions by Lynne Adele, Brooke Davis Anderson, Haley Berkman, David Breslin, Víctor M. Espinosa, William Fagaly, Edward M. Gómez, Jo Farb Hernández, Lee Kogan, Colin Rhodes and Leslie Umberger. The Menil Collection, Houston, 112 pages, 114 color illustrations, 2016. ISBN: 9780300218411. Hardcover, $45. As Essential as Dreams could easily have been another routine entry in a long line of vanity art projects-exhibits of personal collections, ideally at prestige museums, with catalogs just weighty enough to prove the collectors’ good taste and sound
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Outsider Art: Visionary Worlds and Trauma, by Daniel Wojcik. University Press of Mississippi, Jackson, MS, 276 pages, 174 color illustrations, 2016. ISBN: 978-1496808066. Hardcover, $45 Can we agree that the art still sometimes known as outsider is much more interesting than what to call it? It might seem a simple enough proposition, yet arguments over the label continue to distract from the art, even among those who consider the debate mostly fruitless. Daniel Wojcik’s book is a case in point. When it’s good, it’s very good, providing sensitive, thoughful accounts of the art and its creators, with real insights into
Continue readingIt took a long time to get to the Ventures in my project to rip and sell a large vinyl collection. I left them for the end because, frankly, I wasn’t sure I could face listening to the hours of music my Ventures 24 albums contained. These guys released some two dozen albums in the first half of the 1960s alone, and they must have been desperate for material. How else to explain why a song like Jimmy Crack Corn – a standby from everyone’s second or third music lesson — would wind up on Dance With The Ventures (also
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To grasp the impact of the temples around Angkor Wat, think of Chartres. Chartres is wonderful — here you find a dozen-plus Chartres, all within 45 minutes of each other. The Cambodian temples are every bit as spectacular as their reputation would have you believe. Their massive scale, their finely crafted detail, their lovely jungle settings, their ruin and their restoration combine to make this one of the world’s great places. Yes, it is very hot, and many of the sites are crowded with tourists. Some temples were probably over restored. But the architecture is compelling and the sculpture fascinating.
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