A relaxed day seemed in order, after the late night residue buzz post my presentation at The Museum of Morbid Anatomy had left me with.
However I just had to check out one of the most important places on my ‘must see’ list in between my usual wanderings, urban art spotting and architectural voyeurism.
Impoverished artist I may be but one of my indulgences is a subscription to RawVision magazine, and it was in there that I found reference to the American Folk Art Musem.
This Museum was both wonderful…and disappointing.
The exhibition presently being shown is ‘Fever Within: The Art of Ronald Lockett’ an African American artist who was born and raised in Alabama and died of an HIV/AIDS related illness at 32, after only ten years of working as an artist.
Running alongside this was a ‘compliment exhibition, ‘Once Something has Lived it can Never Really Die.’ This borrows its title from a large assemblage by Lockett, and contains work by other non mainstream artists which exemplify, resonate and echo Locketts themes which were most often centred around vulnerability, fragilty, and a feeling of being brutally trapped.
These compliment pieces are so pagan, so animist…works of madness, shamanism, tribalism,magic and prisoners of war… and succeed at surrounding and magnifying the voice of Locketts own work
I loved this exhibition, the use of found objects, the animism and the feeling that nothing ever fully dies, is a belief that is a constant in my own work.
I really appreciated the fact that the museum acknowledged the artist’s work which had addressed issues of racial political and economic unrest in his own time, as being particularly relevant and pertinent to America at this time.
So what disappointed me about the Museum? The exhibition was great, the Museum was free, and there is a constant stream of related events and activities going on.
Well the Museum was tiny, which confused me as I knew that they owned a definitive and huge collection of Folk art.
Talking to one of the curators, it seems that they were unable to maintain the upkeep on their original premises and their neighbours, MoMA , bought them out (and had the building knocked down for redevelopment) and the main body of The American Folk Art Museum collection is now archived elsewhere.
It is possible to arrange a visit to see the archives, but it’s appointment only, so that will need to be another visit unfortunately.
www.folkartmuseum.org
