National Gallery of Art

The National Gallery of Art explores self-taught and avant-garde art

The National Gallery of Art explores self-taught and avant-garde art

In Outliers and American Vanguard Art, the National Gallery of Art aims to dissolve the boundaries between self-taught artists and the establishment. Focusing on periods of social and cultural upheaval, the exhibition features 250 works from 80 artists, both schooled and unschooled, and demonstrates how the avant-garde penetrated and intersected with the mainstream art world.

The show begins with the interwar years, when, following the Great Depression and the upheaval that followed, the boundaries between traditional and vanguard art became more porous, and there was more acceptance for people from marginalized groups.works from this period will be presented in conjunction with works by Charles Sheeler andyasuo Kuniyoshi. The sculptures of Elie Nadelman “primitized” his subjects, and he strived to create inexpensive art that would

reach as broad of an audience as possible. A similar sort of intersection occurred in the 1970s, when gay rights, women’s lib and counterculture dominated the mainstream news cycles, and people who had previously been disenfranchised began to have a louder voice.the art world became more expansive, and more open to new media. From 1969, Joseph Yoakum’s illustration of Briar Head Mountain at Bryce Canyon National Park is a recent acquisition by the National Gallery of Art will be on view.also featured from this era is work by Sister Gertrude Morgan, a southern evangelical preacher who made works with religious subjects. In the late ’90s and early 2000s, as the world became more globalized, the American art world began to look more inward. Institutions began assessing which genres, artists and works had been largely overlooked in the past, and working to make their collections more diverse.the final portion of the exhibition focuses on photographs, textiles and craftwork. The wrapped-yarn sculptures that Judith Scott created during the last 15 years of her life will share a gallery with the sculpture works of Jessica Stockholder and Nancy Shaver.

“I hope that it will ask people to reflect on why we construct the boundaries we do.why we validate some kinds of art making and marginalize others,” says exhibition curator Lynne Cooke. “I also hope that the exhibit will stimulate curiosity for other kinds of makers and art making practices.”

Outliers and American Vanguard Art opens January 28 in the National

Gallery of Art’s East Building and remains on view through May 13.

National Gallery of Art • 6th and Constitution Avenue NW Washington, D.C. 20565 • t: (202) 737-4315 • www.nga.gov

Elie Nadelman (1882-1946), Two Acrobats, 1934. Glazed ceramic, 10¾ x 9½ x 6 in. Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington. Gift of Joseph H. Hirshhorn, 1966.

Joseph Yoakum (1889-1972), Briar Head Mtn of National Park Range of Bryce Canyon National Park near Hatch, Utah U.S.A., ca. 1969. Blue-black and black ballpoint pen and colored pencil, 20 x 24 in. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Gift of the...