Installation view, Outliers and American Vanguard Art, National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., January 28–May 13, 2018
Read my new review “Outliers and American Vanguard Art” Levels the Playing Field in Burnaway Magazine. I saw the Outliers exhibition at the National Gallery of Art this past spring, and it opens today at the High Museum in Atlanta. The exhibition is truly exciting for the myriad ways it offers to unravel the modernist canon, opening up rich possibilities for a new understanding of American modern art.
“Outliers and American Vanguard Art”—from the title, it is not immediately clear that this exhibition reconsiders art often referred to as outsider, visionary, or folk, in order to examine its relationship to the development of modern art in America. Curator Lynne Cooke chose the term “outlier” to counter the dismissive or limiting connotations that previous descriptors have taken on. It also stakes out a theoretical position. “Outlier” suggests that an artist’s distance from centers of institutional power can create space for different goals or values. The exhibition debuted at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., this spring, and opens on June 24 at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, a museum known for its strong holdings in self-taught artists from the South. Comprising some 250 works — with slight variations between the venues — the show opens up the definition of American art, from the beginning of modernism to today, and challenges familiar notions of what modernism can look like.