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SWISS ART BRUT: HANS KRÜSI’S SPLENDID WORLD
The Swiss art brut creator Hans Krüsi (1920-1995) eked out a living selling flowers on one of Zürich’s most expensive shopping streets, where, in the early 1980s, an art dealer discovered his colorful, inventive drawings and paintings. Now, an exhibition at the Kunstmuseum Thurgau in Switzerland is showcasing Krüsi’s innovatve art-making techniques. Coming soon.
HANNELORE BARON’S ART: STRANGE SIGNS, HAUNTING BEAUTY
The self-taught, German-born artist Hannelore Baron (1926-1987) created mixed-media collage-drawings and box-assemblage objects. Her family, which was Jewish, fled Nazi Germany in 1939, made its way to the U.S.A., and settled in the Bronx, in New York City. A recent gallery exhibition in NYC examined the enigmatic symbols, signs, and other motifs that became the distinctive visual language of Baron's art. Coming soon.
MAGALI HERRERA: COSMOS OF THE SOUL, RENDERED IN A TRANCE
The Uruguayan self-taught artist Magali Herrera (1914-1992) started making art around 1952. By the early 1960s, she was devoted to painting and worked constantly, often in a trance. In Paris in the late 1960s, she discovered art brut and began corresponding with the French modern artist Jean Dubuffet. Now, a large exhibition of Herrera’s abstract drawings is on view at the Collection de l’Art Brut in Switzerland. Coming soon.
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ODD FACES IN UNEXPECTED PLACES
How the brain processes information about what the eyes see, instantaneously producing a sense of meaning and of other characteristics of what is perceived is simply wondrous. So are optical illusions and other contrived or unexpected kinds of trickery that trip up the act of perception. Photographer Bill Westmoreland shares images from a portfolio of faces found in unexpected places. Coming soon.
PHOTOMACHINÉES: VERNACULAR PHOTOGRAPHY IN SWITZERLAND
On view a few months ago at the Collection de l'Art Brut in Lausanne, Switzerland: More than 450 photographs from the late 1800s to the 20th century, all made by unknown image-makers, many of whom manipulated their material to create fantasy pictures packed with personal or indecipherable meanings. A rich serving of vernacular photography. Coming soon.
HAROLD GRANUCCI: GEOMETRY = A PRECISE ARTISTIC VISION
Born in 1916, Harold Granucci worked as an accountant and furniture-store owner; after retiring, he dedicated his time to creating compositions rooted in mathematically modeled patterns. Granucci, who died at the age of 90, left an artistic oeuvre that is still surfacing and was recently presented at the 2023 Outsider Art Fair in New York. See our report, coming soon.
VIEW THE FILM, FREE OF CHARGE: “VALTON TYLER: FLESH IS FICTION”
The self-taught artist Valton Tyler (1944-2017) lived and worked in Dallas, Texas, and its environs. He created remarkable works — oil paintings, ink drawings on paper, complex etchings — that remain hard to classify according to existing style or genre labels. In 2017, Edward M. Gómez (brutjournal’s founder) and cinematographer Chris Shields made the first-ever film about Tyler’s life and art, which the artist saw before he died. This 42-minute-long film will reside permanently here, on the magazine’s website. It may be viewed in its entirety, free of charge. Watch it and get to know the bright, bizarre world of a techno-baroque visionary. Free access to the article and the film.
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