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IT'S SUMMER, AND SOME LIKE IT HOT. MEANWHILE, SOME LIKE IT NEW. UNVEILING TECHIE REVISIONS: NOW, INSTEAD OF A MONTHLY-ISSUE FORMAT, ALL PUBLISHED ARTICLES APPEAR IN REVERSE-CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER, WITH THE NEWEST ARTICLE AT THE TOP OF THE HOME PAGE. WE'LL BE ABLE TO PUBLISH A VARIETY OF FEATURE ARTICLES, NEWS REPORTS, PHOTO ESSAYS, AND OTHER MATERIAL MORE EFFICIENTLY. NOW THAT'S HOT!

RECENT FEATURES

**ROB OBER: NO IDEOLOGY, PLEASE. THIS ART IS REAL.
“I am suspicious of art informed or directed by ideas or any ideology,” the American artist Rob Ober says. Keeping it real, authentic, shot through with a real pulse, and wildly colorful, Ober’s work feels irresistibly spontaneous and fresh. See. React. Paint. Here, the artist, who grew up all over the place, shares some thoughts about his art. Note to self: We’re in love with those gators. Click here to see article.
**JAMAICAN INTUITIVES: IT’S RAS DIZZY’S WORLD
Ras Dizzy (circa 1932-2008) was one of the most important of the Jamaican Intuitives, a group of self-taught artists whose works began to earn recognition in Jamaica in the late 1970s and notably contributed to shaping a sense of the postcolonial, independent island country’s national cultural identity. A selection of Dizzy’s works from a unique private collection. Click here to see article.
**A BIG, BOLD NEW BOOK: FRANÇOIS JAUVION’S TRIBUTE TO ART BRUT AND OUTSIDER ART MASTERS
In 2020, the French artist François Jauvion’s large-format book L’imagier singulier was published. It featured his own illustrations and texts by various specialists about the lives and accomplishments of numerous art brut and outsider artists. Now, a second volume of Jauvion’s big opus is here. See our overview of L’imagier singulier, Tome 2. Click here to see article.
**ARTIST CATHY WARD: IN LONDON, THE PSYCHIC, SOULFUL MESSAGES OF “THE ORACLES”
Like many art-makers, what with the effects of the coronavirus pandemic period and other concerns, the London-based artist Cathy Ward, who works in various media and genres, has wrestled with numerous, big challenges. Recently, as if purging the negative energy surrounding her, Ward sat down in a corner of her home to create a series of bold, mystical paintings. “They allowed me to reset myself,” she says. See a portfolio of these powerful new pictures. Click here to see article.
**PHOTOGRAPHER JOEL SIMPSON: CAPTURING NATURE’S BIZARRE CREATIVE SPIRIT — AND POWER
The photographer Joel Simpson travels widely in search of unusual natural rock formations and strange textures in the surface of the earth. Here, a selection of new photos from Simpson’s latest expeditions to the Southwest of the U.S.A. illustrates a theoretical approach he has developed to appreciating such striking images. As he notes, it leads viewers “from traditional landscape through abstraction, figuration, and finally to fiction." Click here to see article.
**OFF THE WALL: NEW YORK CITY STREET POETS AND VISIONARIES, THE KENNETH GOLDSMITH COLLECTION
In the 1980s, Kenneth Goldsmith, a poet and university professor, began tearing off anonymously made, handwritten ads, religious-themed proclamations, and oddball declarations that he found posted on walls and lampposts on the streets of New York City. A bemusing selection of such bizarre “poetry” was recently shown at Andrew Edlin Gallery. Click here to see article.
**GENEVA, SWITZERLAND: EMMANUEL HERZ’S JELLYFISH INVASION
Earlier this year, at the café/restaurant Remor in Geneva, Switzerland, we stumbled upon a stunning display of Emmanuel Herz’s festive “Fascinantes Méduses” (“Fascinating Jellyfish”), a group of sculptures and paintings that had taken over the old joint’s ceiling lamps and walls. We were smitten — and maybe also bitten. See out photo-filled report. Click here to see article.
MASKED AND UNMASKED: MARY FRANK
Now 91 years young, the artist Mary Frank has worked in a wide range of media and genres for many decades. At her New York studio, she showed us some photos that, recently, she spontaneously produced using parts of some of her own older works — only to have ended up with some of her strongest images ever. Free access article.

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ARTIST RYAN WARD: FROM THE STUDIO TO THE GALLERY TO THE OUTSIDER ART FAIR
In the autumn of 2022, the artist Ryan Ward opened the Ruffed Grouse Gallery in Narrowsburg, a town on the east bank of the Delaware River in upstate New York. Now, this painter of bold abstractions has brought a selection of his gallery’s diverse offerings to the Outsider Art Fair, including Mose Tolliver paintings and carved-wood figures by David Tinsley.

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TOKYO: “THE PASSION OF JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT” PRESENTED BY AN AUSTRIAN PHOTOGRAPHER WHO KNEW THE AMERICAN PAINTER
The Austrian-born photographer, journalist, poet, and visual artist Roland Hagenberg, who has long been based in Japan, lived and worked in New York in the 1980s. There, he got to know Jean-Michel Basquiat and photographed the young American artist. In Tokyo, Hagenberg has presented a tribute exhibition inspired by Basquiat’s tragic-heroic life story. Free-access article.

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THIS GUY’S A CUTUP: THE ART OF PAUL PLUMADORE
Born and brought up in Massachusetts, Paul Plumadore studied dance at New York University in New York City and became a professional dancer; in 1976, he left the Paul Taylor Dance Company and became a visual artist. In time, he developed a passion for and his own approach to creating collage works. Here, a portfolio of Plumadore’s cur-paper handiwork.

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SUSAN SPANGENBERG’S “ASYLUM DOLLS”: EMBLEMS OF STRUGGLE, ICONS OF SOUL
The artist Susan Spangenberg recalls: “I spent 30 years in and out of mental hospitals. I’d pull flyers off the walls, use my sheets and pillowcases, and steal crayons from a bad recreation group or a pen from the nursing station to express myself.” A lifetime of unfathomably challenging experiences has shaped Susan’s deeply personal art, like her “Asylum Dolls,” which are resonant with psychic power. Free access.

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