I Talk with the Spirits (Installation View), via Art Observed

Spanning both exhibition spaces in its expanded West 24th Street home, Marianne Boesky has opened a new show of works exploring the potency of sculpture and painting, ranging from self-taught artistry through to powerful, yet nuanced meditations on the act of creating as a spiritual force in and of itself.  Drawing its title, I Talk with the Spirits, from a piece by the famous jazz saxophonist Rahsaan Roland Kirk, the show mimics Kirk’s multifarious approach to the creation and execution of his artistic vision, drawing on contemporary modes and materials in conjunction with a deep-rooted, and highly studied perspective on ancient forms and practices. (more…)

Thornton Dial, the African American artist whose vivid brand of sculptural abstraction and assemblage earned the artist a place in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art at the Met, passed away this week at the age of 87 in his McCalla, Alabama home.  “I’d never seen any artist’s works,” Mr. Dial said in 1997. “I can’t copy off anybody because it’s something I do my own self.” (more…)

The New Yorker has published a story on the relationship between Bill Arnett, a white art dealer and archivist of black vernacular art, and Thornton Dial, an 84-year old, self-trained black artist who has had  his highly praised work included in major exhibitions and events, including the 2000 Whitney Biennial.  Facing Dial’s facile categorization as an “outsider artist,” Arnett is currently pushing for mainstream acceptance, not only of his work, but of 20th century African-American Art in general.  “I’m trying to create some documents to leave behind, so that when the system changes, just a little bit, somebody would say, ‘Wow, you mean we had this going on in America in the twentieth century?’  That’s all.” (more…)