'Herded Like Cattle' by Eddie Kurushima is part of 'Race, Class, Gender Does Not Equal Character.' Visit the Photo Place

Visionary exhibit debunks stereotypes

Self-taught artists create unique mega-exhibit

Date published: 10/20/2005

By SHEILA WICKOUSKI

For THE FREE LANCE STAR

For more than 10 years, the American Visionary Art Museum has shown works by visionaries who do not necessarily have formal training and who are not a member of any school or movement.

The works created mostly by self-taught artists also do not require any particular aesthetic knowledge on the part of the viewer.

The results are sometimes awkward and often less than pleasingly beautiful, but they are always interesting. Visitors might not learn anything about art from these pieces, but they may feel good about what it means to be alive.

The museum's latest mega-exhibit takes on a topic that aims to debunk negative stereotyping and to increase the visitor's ability to see his or her true self.

The entrance is a rainbow archway with thousands of smiles shaped from mirrors, created by Andrew Logan.

Logan's life-sized, mirrored and mosaic "Black Icarus" will permanently occupy the air space in AVAM's central stair. His portrait of Nelson Mandela, also made with mirrors, reflects a series of South African "Apartheid Quilts" on the opposing wall.

These memory cloths are simple but painful, and were created by women who suffered under the racist apartheid regime in South Africa.

Audi Olsen's video, "Where the Smiling Ends," shows tourists in front of Italy's Trevi Fountain. They smile for photos, but, unbeknownst to them, Olsen captured that private second after the camera clicks as they release their smiles. The effect is haunting.

Nancy Burson and David Kramlich's "Human Race Machine," an interactive computerized photo-booth installation, allows visitors to see images of their faces gently morph into each of six different races. Burson invented the technology by which photos of missing children are aged so they can be identified years later.

Mr. Imagination's regal throne is next to this display, under the sign, "Always Remember That You Art the Child of King." Artist Greg Warmack is Mr. I and is best known for his prolific use of bottle caps in creating fascinating works.

Nek Chand used recycled material and debris to create figurines and landscapes for the 12-acre Rock Garden in India, which is the largest visionary environment in the world. Some of these statues share space with towering and colorful paper cutouts of Chinese cave dweller Ku Shulan.

WHAT: 'Race, Class, Gender Does Not Equal Character' WHERE: The American Visionary Art Museum, Baltimore Inner Harbor, 800 Key Highway, Baltimore, Md. WHEN: Through Sept. 3, 2006. Museum hours are 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Tuesday-Sunday COST: Adults $11; seniors, students and children $7. INFO: 410/244-1900 WEB: avam.org

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Date published: 10/20/2005