That's a Lot of Outliers

Where: National Gallery of Art, East Building

When: closing May 13, 2018

I had no idea of the size of the National Gallery's concourse galleries until I went to see this show on outlier art.  They are enormous; I felt as if I was walking one of those Bataan Death March shows at the Hirshhorn.  Every time I thought I'd come to the last room, there was another room behind that, and another, and another.

In case you're wondering what "outliers" are in the art context, they are what used to be called folk artists, or outsiders.  Basically, they are artists who have not received the sort of formal training that more mainstream artists have.  This is not the MFA crowd.

This is a wide survey, so you have some pieces from the 1800s and some from this decade.  I was surprised to see some familiar work, including some examples from the New Deal era "Index of American Design."  I have the feeling I saw a show on this project many years ago and marveled at the idea of the government actually supporting artists during difficult times.  Plus, I saw Yasuo Kuniyoshi's "Boy Stealing Fruit," which I saw quite recently at his retrospective at the American Art Museum.  And there were some works by James Castle, who I also saw recently at American Art.  Clearly, the Smithsonian is doing a great job of exhibiting outliers.

There was a room with videos of large installations of outliers, including James Hampton's masterpiece in tinfoil.  I didn't have time to look at that (I was just scanning the works at that point in order to get back to the office), but of course, I can see the real thing at, yes, American Art, any time I want.

Verdict: This is really too large for a lunch time visit, unless you're looking to scan quickly.  I think the enormity of the show takes away a bit from each artist, but if you're interested in outliers, I would advise you to set aside time for this survey.