Wiegand Gallery’s ‘Roots Of The Spirit’ Reunites Four Outsider Artists
Tuesday, October 21, 2014
Kevin http://antiquesandthearts.com/news/2014/10/21/wiegand-gallery-s-roots-spirit-reunites-four-outsi/213331#.VEmtnGfPe2JSampson, “What Time Is It?,” 2005.
BELMONT, CALIF. — The Wiegand Gallery, at Notre
Dame de Namur University, is hosting the West Coast debut of four of the
country’s most notable Outsider artists in “The Roots of the Spirit:
Lonnie Holley, Mr Imagination, Charlie Lucas and Kevin Sampson,” on view
through November 26. Curated by Martha Henry and Robert Poplack,
director of the Wiegand, the exhibition sees the foursome’s work
reunited for the first time since their controversial 2011 Venice
Biennale showing.
“The Roots of the Spirit” includes works created while they were in Venice, as well as throughout their careers.
The genesis of “The Roots of the Spirit” goes back
to 2011 when the four artists were invited to participate in the 54th
Venice Biennale by the American Folk Art Museum in New York and Benetton
in Treviso, Italy, to create large, site-specific installations at the
Fondaco dei Tedeschi. The inclusion of the four self-taught Outsider
artists during the 2011 Biennale promised to be revolutionary because it
offered the opportunity to exhibit within a broad international
context.
Due to an unexpected loss of funding, the
invitation was rescinded, but the artists — under the aegis of gallery
director and curator Martha Henry who ultimately managed to secure a
venue in an Eleventh Century garden — decided they would still attend.
Lonnie Holley, Mr Imagination (Gregory Warmack),
Charlie Lucas (Tin Man) and Kevin Sampson have all achieved renown
individually as self-taught African American artists. Notions of divine
intervention and spiritual renewal are at the heart of much of the
foursome’s work. It is art that honors ancestors as an antidote to death
and private grief.
Viewing themselves as caretakers of the earth, the
artists harvest the overflowing debris of contemporary civilization and
transform it into art as a means of preserving the rescued materials to
teach future generations.
The materials and methods place them squarely
within the wider context of the international contemporary art world.
Their use of assemblage, found object sculpture and installation invite
comparisons to contemporary art practices dating back from the beginning
of the Twentieth Century.
Their work can be found in many major American
museum collections including: American Folk Art Museum, New York;
Birmingham (Ala,) Museum of Art; American Visionary Museum, Baltimore;
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.; High Museum, Atlanta;
and Intuit: The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art, Chicago, among
others.
The Wiegand Gallery is at 1500 Ralston Avenue.
For additional information, www.ndnu.edu/arts-events/wiegand-gallery or 650-508-3595.
Lonnie Holley, “Steel Worker,” 2008. 
Charlie Lucas, “Two Brothers Lock Their Mind Together.”
Mr Imagination, “Doll’s Throne,” 2004. 
