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"Day Ride," by Theresa Disney. Image courtesy of the AltArt Fair
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"Keys to the Kingdom," Jim Shores. Image courtesy of the AltArt Fair
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"Nail Man," Gene Harris. Image courtesy of the AltArt Fair
Two years ago, one of the country's most powerful art critics, New York Magazine's Jerry Salz, wrote about the New York Outsider Art Fair, calling for an insidering of self-taught, folk, visionary and self-taught artists. He noted that one of the artists on display that year at the fair, "one of the greatest 'outsiders' of them all, Bill Traylor," made work that stood up alongside "any Picasso from the same period. Or, indeed, any artist." He added that "Millions of viewers and thousands of nascent artists are being denied the chance to see some of the best work made in the last 100 years simply because it was once decided that to be an artist meant having had preapproved training."
In that spirit, the intrepid Shana Norton has, for the past several years, organized our local Outsider Art Fair. Though this year, with an expansion of the kinds of work that will be at the fair, she decided to rename it.
"They're not necessarily all outsider artists in the pure sense of the word or the term," she says. "So, that's why I step back and I changed the name this year to AltArt."
The long list of participating galleries includes St. Louis' Artists First (formerly Turner Center for the Arts); Panorama Folk Art Gallery on Cherokee; Theresa Disney's Funhouse Gallery; and one big addition new for this year, Chicago's Intuit: The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art.
"We also have the Outsider Art Gallery, which is in Frenchtown, New Jersey," Norton says. "This year, they are going to bring more of their collection, but they also are hosting the A-Team Arts Collective. I'm excited about them, because they are an arts collective at the Trenton Area Soup Kitchen—it's a collective art studio, so the people coming in the soup kitchen can also participate in the art studio."
Other participating artists include an Episcopal priest who began drawing mandalas after a traumatic brain injury. They incorporate not just Christian symbols but synthesize imagery from various world religions and eventually became talking points in his sermons. Another artist, a self-taught painter from Syria, was a last-minute discovery for the 2014 event: "The week before the fair, he sent me an email," Norton says. "I opened the email because every year, I always get something great at the last minute." Norton's brother, the self-taught artist Craig Norton, is also in the show. Though he's exhibited at White Flag Projects, Laumeier, RAC, and William Shearburn, for the past few years he's been mainly showing in galleries in Chicago and New York. Beloved St. Louis folk artist Theresa Disney, as well as the inimitable Kit Keith (who also created the fair's logo), are also on the roster. It's a motley group of both galleries and artists.
To that end, Norton also invited artists Dr. Jacqueline Lewis-Harris and Adelia Parker-Castro to jury the work this year—though in a process more akin to curation. Each participating gallery or studio chose its participating artists, and then Harris and Castro worked together to chose the strongest pieces from each one. Norton also invited Taylor Harris of Webster University to contribute an essay, "What is Outsider Art?" for the website, since it's a term that has (as any Google search will reveal) inspired lots of discussion and debate over the years.
Norton, for her part, totally agrees with the kinds of sentiments Saltz put forth in his essay.
"I think that times are changing and that non-mainstream art, the face of it is changing, and a lot of the outskirt artists are of course changing, they are insider now, you know?" Norton says. "So we see them at blue chip galleries and we see them at auctions, and so it’s really kind of a misnomer to say that they are outside."
The AltArt Fair happens Friday, August 28 and Saturday August 29 at the Koken Art Factory, 2500 Ohio. Hours are 6–10 p.m. Friday and noon–8 p.m. Saturday. Admission is $5; Friday's reception will include food, drinks, and a performance by The Darrel Mixon Quartet. For more information, go to altart.us.
