Vernacular Voices at the Ogden Museum
During a visit to New Orleans this summer, I visited the Ogden Museum of Southern Art and saw a great show. “Vernacular Voices, Self-Taught, Outsider and Visionary Art From the Permanent Collection.”
According to the museum’s literature, “Vernacular Voices brings together a range of works by Self-taught, Outsider and Visionary artists from the American South to showcase the Ogden Museum of Southern Art’s significant collection of Vernacular Art. Together, these works offer a broad view of the practices of a diverse group of artists who share many commonalities, perhaps the most important being that they have each created truly original bodies of work outside of any formal academic dialogue. This is art drawn from life itself – intuitive, honest and tied to the culture in which it was created” …
I particularly liked works by Clementine Hunter, Benny Andrews, Reverend Howard Finster and Roy Ferdinand.
… “Unlike folk art in a broad sense – which includes craft genres deeply rooted in tradition, such as ceramics, basketry, blacksmithing and quilting – the Vernacular Art included in this exhibition concerns itself with an expressive esthetic more commonly associated with Modern and contemporary art. Artists from both sides of the academic divide are concerned with some of the same things: line, color, shape, form, value, space and narrative. Yet, taken as a group, the artists in this exhibition – despite often having different backgrounds and motivations – have more in common with one another than with any other movement of art. They share a common tongue, so to speak.”
Photos by CAROLINA CLEERE
