Maine Antique Digest, April 2017

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32-A Maine Antique Digest, April 2017
- SHOW -
32-A
New York City
The 25th Outsider Art Fair
by Julie Schlenger Adell
Celebrating its 25th year, the Outsider
Art Fair drew record crowds January 19
through 22 at the Metropolitan Pavilion, a
venue that is easy to get to on West 18th Street in
Manhattan. Owned and managed for the last few
years by Outsider art dealer Andrew Edlin’s Wide
Open Arts, it has become a must-see among the
many shows and auctions held during Americana
Week in New York City.
One of the reasons? The Outsider Art Fair has
heart and soul.
The show coincided with inauguration week-
end, and visitors were invited to read from
some of President Obama’s speeches, as the fair
acknowledged “his leadership and extraordinary
service to the country.” A portion of the proceeds
from the sale of folk art quilts exhibited at the
fair was given to God’s Love We Deliver, a New
York City-based social services organization, and
children were encouraged to “draw their city” at
tables set up at the fair’s entrance, which freed up
their parents to view the art.
And the art? Emerging as a field in the 1940s
primarily because of artist Jean Dubuffet’s
research, Art Brut (raw art)—visionary works by
self-taught creators on the fringe of mainstream
society—has catapulted into the mainstream.
The best works command prices in the hundreds
of thousands of dollars, auction houses hold
dedicated sales of the genre, and museums
continue to expand collections.
“The fair retains a sense of discovery,” stated
dealer Fred Giampietro in a telephone interview a
couple of weeks after the show. The New Haven,
Connecticut, dealer said he made 35 sales during
the event and 11 afterward. “I give Andrew
[Edlin] credit. He’s kept it as pure as possible. It’s
a focused show, and it’s been growing the last few
years. Clearly it got all the press in New York,”
Giampietro said, referencing the front-page
coverage in the New York Times art section, which
eclipsed that of the Winter Antiques Show.
“It was a tremendous show,” noted Chicago
dealer Carl Hammer, who is a pioneer in the field
and continues to discover new talent. “We sold
seventy-five percent of the artists we brought,”
he said, adding, “Overall, the show looked
better this year. The curation was tighter, and the
installations were crisper and cleaner.” Hammer
allowed that he’s a purist when it comes to Art
Brut and Outsider art, pointing to some dealers
“who need to practice restraint and not bring in
Sunday artists.” In other words, “Dealers can’t be
cleaning out their closets.” He stressed, however,
that “The fair looked a lot better this year.”
For Andrew Edlin, this edition of the fair
was “the best ever.” The celebration of its 25th
anniversary “was a great hook, and people
celebrated and reflected on its history and its
place in the broader art field,” he said. Of the
60 dealers who participated, nine were from the
original show.
As a dealer, Edlin said he feels “compelled
to bring out the highest quality and the most
prominent names to put our best foot forward,”
and thus he showed works in his booth by Eugene
von Bruenchenhein, Domenico Zindato, Guo
Fengyi, and Adolf Wölfli.
Edlin bought the fair from show promotor
Sandy Smith of Sanford L. Smith & Associates
almost five years ago. Ever the show manager,
Smith visited the Outsider fair a couple of times
over the weekend and remarked, “Andrew has
done an extremely good job. He’s expanded it
far beyond what I could have done. He’s a dealer
in the field and knows everyone. His wife is the
curator of Art Brut at the American Folk Art
Museum.” The museum will feature more than
80 works by Eugen Gabritschevsky (Russian,
1893-1979) in an exhibition to be held March 14
to August 20, 2017, and at the same time it will
hold the first museum exhibition in the United
States for Italian-born Carlo Zinelli (1916-1974).
Both presentations have been curated by Valerie
Rousseau, Edlin’s wife.
The fair has a vetting committee comprising
“the most sophisticated dealers who participate
in the show,” explained Edlin. The committee
members are anonymous, he said, and they assess
the quality of the work dealers are bringing and
make sure the works “fit the bill...self-taught to a
large degree. There aren’t rules etched in stone,”
said Edlin, but rather “guidance on how to retain
the fair’s flair and originality. There are more
dealers coming from the contemporary side,” he
noted, “and their values are crisper and cleaner
and less salon style.”
The Outsider Art Fair will return to New York
City in January 2018. In October 2017 the fair
returns to Paris, celebrating its fifth anniversary
in the City of Light.
The Outsider Art Fair
has heart and soul. Marianne B Gallery, New York City, showed works by Robert
Sundholm (b. 1941), whose colorful paintings celebrate New York
City and its neighborhoods, which is ironic because Sundholm’s
life has been filled with sadness and despair. Sundholm was an
orphan, a hustler, an alcoholic, and illiterate until age 32, but his
paintings show a different side of the artist—the loneliness, pain,
and neglect he experienced. Then he met a woman while working
as a counterman at Schrafft’s restaurant who became his patron.
Marianne Belardinelli and her husband, Daniel, an artist whose
work was also exhibited at the fair by Bourbon-Lally, Port au Prince,
Haiti, devoted their booth to Sundholm’s art, and several sales were
made. Prices were in the $500 to $1000 range.
This William Edmondson sculpture of a figure with
cape sold at Fred Giampietro’s booth in the first hours
of the fair. “I owned it thirty years ago, just got it
back, and sold it,” the New Haven, Connecticut, dealer
explained. Giampietro made 35 sales at the fair and 11
afterward, he said. James Barron Art, Kent, Connecticut, asked $200,000 for Janet
Sobel’s untitled enamel on masonite, 1946-48.
Fleisher/Ollman Gallery,
Philadelphia, offered these
sculptures by Eugene von
Bruenchenhein (1910-1983).
They are made from clay that
the artist found in his backyard
and then fired in his kitchen
oven. “He would then paint
them with radiator paint
or enamel,” explained John
Ollman. “Bake a meatloaf, bake
a pot,” he said with a smile,
pointing out that the sculptures
are hard to find. Ranging in
price from $2000 to $8000, six
of the seven seen here had sold
by midday on Sunday.