The American Folk Art Museum Struggles With ‘Self’ Expression

The American Folk Art Museum is having an identity crisis. Two handsomely appointed exhibitions, “Self-Made: A Century of Inventing Artists” and “Folk Nation: Crafting Patriotism in the United States,” are testaments to a long-standing commotion about nomenclature. Take, for example, a colleague with whom I attended the press preview. She was compelled to scratch her head wondering about the difference between art made by folks and art made by outsiders. The homiletic tableaus of Anna Mary Robertson Moses, better known to the world as “Grandma,” were once dubbed “primitive.” So, let’s classify the stuff as “naive” or maybe “visionary.” “Vernacular” is good. “Art Brut” is French: Too continental. “Traditional?” Meh. The museum’s Deputy Director & Chief Curatorial and Program Officer, Emelie Gevalt, worries “that layered and sometimes contested meanings” inherent to a label will hamper an individual’s attempts at “cultural negotiation.” The accompanying press release calls into question the notion of “folk,” but academese like “cultural negotiation” gets a free pass? It’s almost as if our gatekeepers were embarrassed by the objects under their care. Words evolve over time and often for the better, but this type of hand-wringing is typical of an arts establishment in which matters of discrimination — that is to say, determining what is meritorious and what is negligible — are considered impolitic, elitist or worse. It’s of some interest to note that two paintings by Joe Coleman are included in “Self-Made.” How “folk” can a guy be if he studied at the School of Visual Arts, had a career as a pioneering performance artist, and has long been a fixture of New York City avant-circles?This is not a slight against Mr. Coleman. His kaleidoscopic pictures are meticulous tours de force that would’ve given Jan van Eyck conniptions. But it’s fair to say that the paintings aren’t like those by Henry Darger or Sister Gertrude Morgan. Mr. Coleman is a stylist who likes the art of outsiders and attempts to channel their authority. Darger and Morgan aren’t fettered by options: They’re unschooled individuals driven to create from, respectively, personal compulsion and religious fervor. This is an important distinction. Be that as it may, “Self-Made” and “Folk Nation” are replete with odd, engaging, and telling objects. “Folk Nation,” the more modest of the two shows, has been mounted in honor of the nation’s upcoming semiquincentennial. A canvas by the aforementioned primitive, Grandma Moses, is included as is Edward Hicks with a variation on his signature image, “The Peaceable Kingdom with the Leopard of Serenity” (1846-48). William Edmondson’s gruff 1937 limestone effigy, “Angel,” is in direct contrast to the sleek and witty contours of “Dowitcher,” from 1890, a wood carving of a bird whose authorship is up for grabs.Edward Hicks, “The Peaceable Kingdom With the Level of Serenity.” 1835-40. Via American Folk Art Museum & The Barbara L. Gordon CollectionConnoisseurs will recognize more than a few artists in “Self-Made.” These would include the redoubtable Morris Hirschfeld, the stalwart John Kane, and the halting Horace Pippin. A vertiginous cut-and-pasted vista by Mexican-born Martín Ramírez is a show-stopper, though there are a handful of works on view that make a muddle of any attempt to navigate between personal vision and private fetish. But, then, we are reminded that the exhibition “shifts the focus away from the viewer’s role in completing the creative act and places it squarely on the artist’s agency.” Which means, I guess, that you and I are absolved from looking at the things.Such bad advice — particularly for a venue for which the price of admission is not a red cent. Enjoy a visit to the American Folk Art Museum, however you choose to define it.

The American Folk Art Museum Struggles With ‘Self’ Expression

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