SEPTEMBER 2022 – brutjournal

THIS IS THE PLACE FOR DISCOVERIES AND DISCUSSIONS OF THE MOST INVENTIVE ART FORMS – ALL KINDS OF ART THAT IS FAR-OUT, FANTASTIC, FREE-SPIRITED, FUN, FUNKY, PHENOMENAL AND GOOD FOR THE SOUL. (MAMA CALLED IT SUI GENERIS)
SUBSCRIBE, BABY. RIGHT NOW!

POP THE CORK! RAISE A GLASS AND WATCH THE SPECTACLE AS A LEGION OF DANCING BOYS AND GIRLS IN GO-GO BOOTS AND SEQUINED MUUMUUS POP OUT OF A GIANT CAKE. WITH THIS ISSUE, brutjournal MARKS ITS FIRST ANNIVERSARY. BIG THANKS TO EVERYONE — SUBSCRIBERS, ADVERTISERS, ARTISTS OF ALL STRIPES, OUR SUPER-CREATIVE CONTRIBUTORS — FOR HELPING TO NURTURE THE brutjournal COMMUNITY. ONWARD AND UPWARD, WITH LOVE AND CAKE CRUMBS IN OUR HAIR!

Editor’s Letter

What the heck is brutjournal?
By Edward M. Gómez

An exclusive photo portfolio and recollections of the artist Leonard Daley (1930-2006), one of the “Jamaican Intuitives,” whose paintings — and all-over painted house — evoked a sense of nature’s primordial forces.
by Edward M. Gómez

The artist Gary Woodley explores concepts of physical and imagined space with a craftsman’s attentive touch. Part of this month’s “What’s the Big Idea?” section.

With a gently transgressive sense of humor, Jim Colquhoun’s drawings challenge notions about perception and question the essential character of drawing itself. Part of this month’s “What’s the Big Idea?” section.

CONCEPTUAL ART: AN ART OF IDEAS AND IDEALS

Click on the image above to see this free-access article.

THE BOX: MUSIC AT THE HAIR-CUTTING SALON

DAVID DIXON’S LATEST ART: YOU CAN BANK ON IT

David Dixon, who runs Cathouse Proper, a Brooklyn gallery, is an artist whose thematically multilayered works are often site-specific creations. Here, he tells us about his most recent project, which was installed inside a former bank and evoked a sense of history.

OUT THERE: AN EARLY CONCEPTUAL ART PROJECT, ODD, RADICAL, AND MISUNDERSTOOD

brutjournal’s visual director, the photographer Bill Westmoreland, recalls presenting a conceptual-art project when he was a student in art school in Texas, in the early 1970s. It was received as something very far-out and incomprehensible.

LINDA SIBIO: FROM “CRACKED EGGS,” POWERFUL, PERSONAL ARTISTIC EXPRESSIONS

Painter, performer, teacher — Linda Sibio struggled with poverty and developed a mode of art instruction for people affected by mental disorders that “uses their symptoms as avenues for creative expression.” She recalls her remarkable journey of self-discovery through art.

PREVIEW: 2022 OUTSIDER ART FAIR PARIS

Back in full form after pandemic-provoked postponements, the Outsider Art Fair Paris, the sister of the OAF New York, will offer a vibrant showcase for art brut and outsider art in Europe. Fair owner Andrew Edlin tells us about the much-anticipated event. Free-access article.

MIMI YOUNG: CREATIVE COLLABORATION WITH NATURE AND TIME

In 2013, using clay scraps from a pottery workshop, the artist Mimi Young made molded forms based on her own body and then used them to create an outdoor installation. Its decomposition was part of its subject matter and purpose. Young recalls this work’s motivating ideas.

SPIRIT PHOTOGRAPHY: A BRIEF HISTORY THROUGH THE PARANORMAL BELIEVER’S LENS

From last month’s special section on art and the spiritual: Cultural historian Daniel Wojcik, a specialist in folklore, mythology, and religious culture, looks at the evolution of “spirit photography” and the 19th-century beliefs that influenced it. Holy ectoplasm!

INFORMED IDEAS ABOUT “IDEA ART”

Some experienced creators and handlers of works of conceptual art share their observations about this often intangible and intriguing art form, including Martha Wilson, Harley Spiller, Robert Waters, and Shai Ohayon. Free-access article.