Published January 18, 2010 by Molly
Whatever you think of the term “outsider art” (it’s a fraught one), there’s no doubt that Henry Darger is the consummate outsider.
A recluse in his Chicago apartment, Darger (1892-1973) spent his life writing and illustrating an original epic adventure titled “The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What Is Known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco-Angelinnian War Storm, Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion.” The confluence of sheer visual genius, galaxy-sized ambition and wacked-out imagination doesn’t happen often, and in Darger’s case its lucky that his paintings even came to light.
Those interested in any of the above could definitely spend a productive hour or two scoping out Darger’s work online (it is well-represented). For those who develop a deeper interest, Klaus Biesenbach’s book of scholarly essays and biography and key texts will be one to add to the book list.
Published June 23, 2009 by Molly
The descriptor “outsider”– as in “outsider art” or “outsider music”–is a loaded adjective. Whatever you think it means (and even if that’s “nothing”), we can all agree that it points to some indefinable quality of strangeness in a work. Any definition beyond that gets thorny.
Safe to say, then, that Brandon Scott Gorrell is working in the vein of the outsider artist. His full-length book of poetry, during my nervous breakdown i want to have a biographer present is a thoroughly confounding collection of pieces with titles like “gmail” and “today i empathized with the top of a tower”. It is either extremely easy to understand or extremely befuddling; I’m still not sure which. Published by Muumuu House, Gorrell’s work feels like the kind of poetry that very few people will like but those few people will like it immensely. Faint praise? No, just praise with an advanced warning.
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