The term outsider art is a tricky thing. It usually pertains to untrained artists who fall into a sub category of folk art. Anyone from Grandma Moses to Thornton Dial are lumped in. Wiki says, that typically, those labeled as outsider artists have little or no contact with the mainstream art world or art institutions. In many cases, their work is discovered only after their deaths. Often, outsider art illustrates extreme mental states, unconventional ideas, or elaborate fantasy worlds.
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| Thornton Dial in a photo taken for Time Magazine. He has also been featured on 60 Minutes |
When you see the work of Thornton Dial, you realize he is on par with any modern artist from Jackson Pollock to Robert Rauschenberg to Julian Schnabel, and very much the spiritual father of someone like Jean Michel Basquiat. His art defies category. It is in fact great art, monumental and museum worthy as evidenced at how many museums acquire his paintings and works for their collections. And he is very much alive, nor a man in an extreme mental state (more than any of us, or any artist). His ideas are no longer unconventional, though he expresses them in a totally unique and spectacular way. His fantasy world is one that allows civil rights and equality.
After more than two decades in which his work has settled gradually into the collections of a number of major museums, he may at last be achieving a kind of cultural velocity. What he does can be discussed as art, just art, no surplus qualifiers necessary.
In 1987, a remarkably prescient conversation occurred between Thornton Dial and Atlanta art historian/patron Bill Arnett soon after they met. A book resulted called,
Truth and Consequences:The 25 Year Old Friendship of Thornton Dial and Bil Arnett.
Arnett said, “Mr. Dial, people value cultures according to how well they make art, and nobody believes black Americans are capable of making great art. You can become one of the most important artists in the world and make everybody realize they were wrong. You can open doors to so many people like yourself who’ve been kept out. You can bring civil rights to people in ways that Martin Luther King didn't live to do.” Dial responded, “Man, if I’m that good they’ll have to kill me.”
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| Don't miss the Thornton Dial show at NOMA |
I am a great admirer of Thornton Dial. So I am so happy that a major exhibition of his work is at the New Orleans Museum of Art until May 20. Don't miss it!
And here's another book you should include in your library of art books,
Hard Truths, The Art of Thornton Dial.
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