I have been corresponding by email with Leigh Cooney for many months. Leigh is an artist who lives in Stratford Ontario. I had an opportunity to meet him in person last week while visiting the Toronto area. My lively and thoughtful email discussions with Leigh prepared me for meeting a kindred spirit, and I was not disappointed.

For many reasons, Leigh took himself out of the outsider art category. He now describes his work as “Neo-Folk” or “Pop-Folk”.  Whatever it’s called, I know you will find his creations delightfully subversive and humourous.

The next few blogs are things that Leigh and I discussed. I posed a series of questions for him in an effort to get to know the artist behind the art.

Question: Tell me about when you first decided to “create art”. What do you think triggered the timing? What materials did you use?

Answer: Like so many creative people, “art” in some form or another has always been a part of my life. My very first memory of doing something artistic was from Ireland when I was probably no more than 5 years old. I was filling in the faces in a colouring book and I remember my older brother sitting on the floor beside me.  I was doing the faces green and red and blue or whatever was close at hand, and my brother told me that was wrong and handed me a “peach” coloured pencil telling that it was “skin colour.”  It seems almost laughable looking back, but we were just kids, and besides that, we could be forgiven because this was Ireland in the early 80’s, there weren’t really any other nationalities in the country for another 10 years.

Anyway, it was like a Eureka moment for me.  It was then on the living room floor that I decided to stop messing about and take my career seriously…  as either an artist or an astronaut.  Or this might just be revisionist history. One thing is for sure, it took me 23 years before I would move on from coloured pencils to oil paint.

Wölfli ’s artwork is dense with text, numbers, and musical notations. Repetitive music was droning at the  Wölfli museum in Prague and I thought it interesting that they had matched such discordant sounds to the exhibit. It is hard to describe the music – haunting and somewhat eerie. There were photographs of  Wölfli  playing his hand-made instruments – rolls of cardboard rolled into a trumpet shape. Although my son manages to produce deep, rumbling sounds from a didgeridoo, I couldn’t see how anyone could produce such sounds on a cardboard tube.

The Adolf Wölfli Foundation addresses the big question: do these musical notes mean anything?

Naturally enough, the question whether Wölfli’s can be played is asked again and again. The answer is yes, with some difficulty. Parts of the musical manuscripts of 1913 were analyzed in 1976 by Kjell Keller and Peter Streif and were performed. These are dances – as Wölfli indicates – waltzes, mazurkas, and polkas similar in their melody to folk music. How Wölfli acquired his knowledge of music and its signs and terms is not clear. He heard singing in the village church. Perhaps he himself sang along. There he could see song books from the eighteenth century with six-line staffs (explaining, perhaps, his continuous use of six lines in his musical notations). At festivities he heard dance music, and on military occasions he heard the marches he loved so well. More important than the concrete evaluation of his music notations is Wölfli’s concept of viewing and designing his whole oeuvre as a big musical composition. The basic element underlying his compositions and his whole oeuvre is rhythm. Rhythm pervades not only his music but his poems and prose, and there is also a distinctive rhythmic flow in his handwriting.

I saw a CD for sale at the museum and asked (through silly sign language) if it was Wölfli’s compositions. Yes, it was. When I finally got to play the CD, I discovered that it was not the music playing at the exhibit, but something similar – more rumbling notes, more discordant sounds in a minor key. The CD cover is blank. I have no idea who composed or performed this music, but suppose it was compiled especially for the exhibit. The Internet offers a bit of help with recordings of  Wölfli ’s simple tunes as well as pieces “inspired” by him. The simple tunes are what you would expect from someone who had grown up hearing folk music.

A few musicians have composed music “inspired” by  Wölfli . Danish composer  Per Nørgård, is probably the best known of these. Here is one of his compositions: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgn_ejuHa24    It is ominous. It won’t make you think of a spring meadow…

Finally, we’re back in Canada for the next blog. I’m off to the Toronto area to meet up with Leigh Cooney and Alma Rumball’s family.

I know this blog is supposed to be about Canadian outsider art, and I will get back to that topic soon. First I have to tell you about my side trip to Prague when I was in Berlin. I was extremely lucky that a very large collection of Adolf Wölfli’s work was on exhibit at the time.

Adolf Wölfli (1864–1930) is one of the granddaddies of all outsider artists. He was born in Bern, orphaned at the age of 10, lived in state-run foster homes, worked on a farm, and ended up in a psychiatric hospital where he spent the rest of his life. He suffered from psychosis and vivid hallucinations. Wölfli had no previous interest in art, but began drawing spontaneously around 1899 while he was institutionalized. His collection grew to about 25,000 pages of writing and 1,600 drawings.

Wölfli’s prolific writing started with his autobiography From the Cradle to the Grave. It begins in the usual way, with information about the date and place of his birth, and then quickly transforms the details of his desolate life into an epic story of his magnificent childhood. The main character is named Doufi (from Adolf) who leaves Switzerland for America with his family. For the next 3,000 pages, illustrated with 750 drawings, maps, and portraits, Doufi travels around the world and survives grand and dangerous adventures.

In the second part of Wölfli’s writings, the Geographic and Algebraic Books, St. Adolf II describes how to carry out the St. Adolf Giant creation after his death. The earth will be purchased, then the universe. Numbers cannot express the gigantic dimensions of his mental world, so Wölfli expands the numerical system after quadrillion to include regonif, suniff, untif, vidoniss, weratif, xylottif, and so on to the highest number called “anger”.

In the third and fourth collections of writings, Books with Songs and Dances and Album Books with Dances and Marches, Wölfli celebrates his world in poetry, song, scales, drawings, and collages. During the last year of his life, Wölfli worked on a final collection called the Funeral March, as if he were composing a requiem in anticipation of his own death. He illustrates the central themes of his world system in keywords and collages of pictures torn from magazines.

A clinic doctor became interested in Wölfli’s artwork and saved thousands of pages of writings and drawings. Dr. Walter Morgenthaler later published a book  Ein Geisteskranker als Künstler (A Psychiatric Patient as Artist), which introduced his patient to the art world. French artist, Jean Dubuffet, saw the work of Wölfli and other artwork from patients in psychiatric institutions and “Art Brut” was founded. (See first post, When you come to a fork in the road.)

The exhibit in Prague was called Wölfli – Creator of the Universe and that was an appropriate description of his life’s work.  The exhibit offered a cross section of Wölfli’s oevre in about 10 rooms of exhibit space.  I watched as viewers inched through the exhibit, savouring the details of every piece. It was definitely not an exhibit to breeze through on your way to the gift shop.

Wölfli’s drawings are extremely intricate; every inch of the page is filled with details that we have come to recognize: his symbolic bird figure, the man with racoon-like eyes, mandelas, tiny dots and later, musical notes and text. At one point Wölfli told the hospital staff that he did not produce the work himself. He thought it should be obvious that he had divine inspiration to produce the artwork as he would never have been able to create it from his own mind. In another comment, Wölfli says that he knows his work is the product of an insane person. I wondered if the line between fantasy and reality was always blurred or whether he had moments of clarity. What is it like to be the creator of a universe?

To sum up Adolf Wölfli’s life work in a few paragraphs does not do justice to the depth and scope of his universe. There is always more to see, more to hear. The next blog will be about Wölfli’s musical compositions.

Some readers do not share my view of Bartlett and thankfully they let me know. They raise an important issue: to them, Bartlett clearly crossed the line from obsessive artist to child pornographer. I understand their argument when I view the work through their eyes. Interpretation of his work truly lies with the beholder. But once presented with the opposite view, can we ever see the works in the same light again?

I turned to Lyle Rexer’s book, How to Look at Outsider Art, and find that he acknowledges the erotic nature of the photographs, but argues for their acceptance. He says at page 115:

[Bartlett] would not be the first to have fashioned such intense images of desire, or invested them with a kind of life. The dream and peril of Pygmalion haunt Bartlett’s Barbies, and it is impossible now to view the works separate from prurience regardless of the artist’s insistence that they were a “hobby.” The power of the works lies in their parallel refusal to transgress, as Henry Darger does, or to cloak desire in whimsy, as many self-taught artists do.

At the deepest level, Bartlett’s work is not about violation but contemplation. We surmise this because he took carefully composed photographs of his creations. Again, Bartlett was not the first to couple dolls, desire, and photography. Apart from Cindy Sherman’s work of the 1990s, the best-known example is that of German Hans Bellmer, who created several articulated “figures” in the 1930s and photographed them incessantly.  Bellmer enacted scenes with his dolls, rearranging their parts in a full-scale assault on the female body and, overtly, on the Nazi ideology of  physical perfection. Photography in this case was pornographic witness of various acts of desecration.

Undeniably erotic, Bartlett’s photos intend and achieve something Bellmer avoided – poignancy. They also reveal the power of the camera, by its fidelity to the subject, to bestow life. In three dimensions, the dolls are, finally, just dolls, near automata. But in front of the camera, they first become posed and captured individuals and then memorial, erotic remembrances. They take their place almost seamlessly among the vast archive of the once-but-no-longer-alive captured in photographs, and in death they gain a convincing vitality they do not have as objects. The double intuition of the nature of dolls and photography is Bartlett’s complex achievement.

I know I’ve got readers who have contrary views on Bartlett’s work. Let me know where you stand.

I had an opportunity to attend the opening of a unique art exhibit in Berlin. I was invited by the director of Gallery Art Cru, the only outsider art gallery in Berlin. Germany has an interesting philosophy when it comes to nurturing art and everyone is included. People with mental disabilities are invited to attend special studios to experiment with art supplies. An artist is present, but he or she does not teach art nor give direction to the attendees. The artist’s role is to explain how materials are used and to answer questions that arise. It is not art therapy, as there is no discussion about the meaning of the works created; nor is the studio’s purpose to “heal” individuals. It is just a studio space, but remarkable things happen there.

A private law firm in Berlin hosted the opening of Marco Born’s first exhibit. Marco, a young man in his 30s, had been experimenting in the studio for a few years. When he discovered painting, he focused solely on painting. When he explored clay sculpture, he did nothing but sculpture. And when he worked on metal sculptures, that became his passion until he felt he understood the medium.

Although Marco didn’t speak English, we talked about this work through a friend who translated for us. Marco doesn’t prefer one media to another – he has thoroughly enjoyed every day in the studio. I really loved his clay scultpures, which were hand-molded and rough-textured. Beautiful to look at and touch. If I lived in Berlin, I would have lugged one home with me.

Marco also learned to create sculptures with metal. These are welded metal strips around a rock. I would have lugged one of these home with me, too.

What I found so different in Berlin is the prevailing belief that art heals, even when it is done for no specific purpose and without instruction. This concept is fascinating and intriguing to me. Is it true? If one of my artist-readers has any thoughts on this topic, please drop me a note. I suspect you have a lot to teach me.

   Joseph Hofer

The one outsider art gallery that I found in Berlin is called Galerie Art Cru.  I stumbled into the gallery after a seemingly hopeless search (I am always lost) through the Oranienburger district of Berlin. I walked in and announced to two people, “I finally found you!”. Those two people turned out to be the gallery director, Alexandra von Gersdorff-Bultmann, and her son Kolya – more members of my tribe. As you other lovers of outsider art already know, any mention of your passion will normally be met with a bored look, bordering on derision. But, I promise, when you find other members of your tribe, you will intuitively know that you “belong” somewhere.

The works of Josef Hofer (Pepi) are currently on exhibit and Alexandra took time to introduce me to his work. Hofer, now in his sixties, was born deaf and mute. He lives in a care home in Austria. He attended a basket making workshop for many years before joining an art group in 1997. Since then he has poured all his energy into drawing and painting. He draws all day, every day, to the extent that it is difficult to get him to take a break.

Pepi grew up on a farm. His first pictures were of farm tools and machinery, like tractors and pitchforks, drawn separately across the paper before him. Gradually, his work became more complex, with the drawings of a person filling the entire page. He would work as if he were dressing the person – first the body, then layers of clothing. One day Pepi was given a full-length mirror. What seems such an ordinary event to us was, in fact, a revelation to him. Having only seen his reflection in a small mirror until then, he was suddenly confronted with his entire self.

The exhibit is titled “Josef Hofer un der Spiegel” (Josef Hofer in the Mirror) and that is a perfect description of the collection. Josef draws figures framed by coloured lines (perhaps an expression of the basketry that he made). Josef’s exploration of his own nude body is an expression of discovering his own sexuality. He draws himself standing naked before a mirror, posed in various positions. His genitals sometimes feature in the drawing, as much of a remarkable discovery as everything else in his new world.

You either delight in Hofer’s work as an expression of self-discovery, or dislike them for their crudity. But no one expects (or hopes) to find Romantic Monet-like impressions in outsider art, do they?

Hofer has made a spectacular entrance into the world of outsider art. His work is now part of the Collection de l’Art Brut in Lausanne. Galleries in New York and Paris also show his work.

As any serious tourist will do, I checked the Internet for flea markets and outsider art in Berlin. I discovered a long list of flea markets, but only one outsider art gallery. I thought there would be more galleries since the world of art brut sprung into existence in Germany with the Prinzhorn collection  in Heidelberg.

We owe a lot to Hans Prinzhorn who, after studying art history and philosophy around 1900, received training in medicine and psychiatry during the First World War. In 1919, he began working at the psychiatric hospital at the Universityof Heidelberg. He was responsible for expanding a collection of art created by the patients. The work was started by Emil Kraepelin and by the time Prinzhorn left in 1921, the collection had grown to about 5,000 pieces of art produced by 450 patients.

Shortly after, Prinzhorn published his first book, called Artistry of the Mentally Ill. He included work done by patients at the Heidelberg hospital. His colleagues were not greatly impressed, but the art world was. Artist Jean Dubuffet was excited by the book, and coined the term “art brut” to describe the “raw” art work created by artists who had not been influenced by the outside world. To Dubuffet, these were expressions of “pure” creativity.

Prinzhorn almost faded into obscurity when he opened a private practice in psychiatry, but the art world changed forever. Shortly after Prinzhorn died in 1933, the collection was stored at the University of Heidelberg. Enter the Nazi regime. An art exhibit in 1937, titled Entartete Kunst (Degenerate Art) exhibited a few works from the Prinzhorn collection along with some other works of modern art. This “modern” art was banned on the basis that it was “un-German”. Degenerate artists were dismissed from teaching positions, forbidden to exhibit their work, and sometimes forbidden to produce art at all. “Real” German art was traditional in style and promoted racial purity, militarism, and obedience. In short, the entire genre of modern art was labeled as contrary to the ideals of German society.

Fortunately, the Prinzhorn collection was stored away at the University rather than burned. Many years later, in 2001, the collection was put on display at the University of Heidelberg. I have wanted to see the collection since studying art history a lifetime ago but, sadly, the museum was closed for the month of May, and I was not able to see it. That pleasure awaits a future trip.

I timed my trip to Berlin to see the Morton Bartlett exhibit at the Bahnhof museum. (See earlier blog about Morton Bartlett.)  Marion Harris organized this major collection to be shown in Berlin. Although I had seen some Bartlett photos at the Outsider Art Fair in NYC a few years ago, I had never see the dolls nor the original photos. The collection is now in various museums around the world, so it was a rare opportunity that I couldn’t miss.

The exhibit alone was worth the trip to Berlin. The exhibit includes many of the original photos that Bartlett took. They are small (about 5 x 7 inches) and framed. It also includes some dolls. I didn’t know what to expect. I have seen many photos of the dolls, and know the story of  Bartlett’s creation, but still it was a surprise.

The dolls stand about 3 ft tall. They are an assembly of various body parts – Bartlett made heads, arms, torsos and legs separately, then put them together in various poses for his photographs. For example, the head of a girl might be attached to the body of a doll posed as a dancer, ready to be photographed.  The whole purpose of Bartlett’s creation was to photograph the children, doing “normal” things like dancing, talking to a dog, sleeping, and reading.

I now understand how this turned into a life-long project for Bartlett. There are hundreds of body parts. In addition to creating the dolls, Bartlett also made their clothing. As no patterns were found in the collection, it is thought that he also designed the clothes. He taught himself to knit in order to make sweaters. He sewed delicate skirts, dresses, and pinafores. His neighbours (Kahlil Gibran and his wife), recall hearing Bartlett’s sewing machine every evening, but they were not aware of his secret family.

I discovered that dolls make people feel uncomfortable, and this certainly is the case with Bartlett’s work. I don’t quite understand that, but I know it is true. I wondered if there was a gender difference in play. Having spent my childhood playing with dolls and believing they were my children, it was not a stretch for me to accept Bartlett’s obsession.

In addition to this general discomfort, others find the dolls to be the subject of misplaced eroticism. I don’t see that either. The collection touched me as I sensed his longing for a family of his own. It triggers memories of my own longings and losses. I left with a sense of wonder.