Cavin-Morris Spotlight

Helen Butler Wells and Norma Oliver were a New York phenomenon in the earlier part of the 20th C. It was considered unladylike for Society women to take part in the arts but it was socially ok for them to engage in Spiritualism and draw through the agency of spirits and mediumistic experiences. They formed the Jansenists and met in an apartment on Riverside Drive. Each had a Spirit guide named Eswald who guided her hand and who signed their works with a stamp made for him. The Society channeled aliens, slaves, historical figures like Socrates, Native Americans and others. The drawings often had laminated plastic on them to protect them. Norma Oliver was the adopted daughter ofWells and her mandalas were spirit portraits of various members of the Jansen Society. The drawings were discovered in the 26th Street flea market a number of years ago. Though they are represented in European collections like ABCD they have not yet been appreciated really by museums in the US. They are really an important example of American Art brut and also spiritualist New York history. We also have some of the Society's archives.

Helen Butler Wells
Automatic Drawing #89, 3/30/1926
Graphite/paper
6.75 x 9 inches
17.1 x 22.9 cm
HW 40

Helen Butler Wells
Spirit Drawing #60, Hernon Mosplaciados, c.1920
Graphite/paper
7.5 x 5.5 inches
19.1 x 14 cm
HW 41

Helen Butler Wells
Spirit Drawing #99 - "Lane", 1928
Graphite on paper
7.5 x 11 inches
19.1 x 27.9 cm
HW 55

Norma Oliver
Spiritual Portrait of Joseph Korpanty, 1950
Pencil, crayon/paper
11 x 8.5 inches
27.9 x 21.6 cm
OL 3

Norma Oliver
Spiritual Portrait of Catherine Grant, 1950
Pencil, crayon/paper
11 x 8.5 inches
27.9 x 21.6 cm
OL 6

Norma Oliver
Strongly in Deed, 1947
Mixed media, collage/paper
10.5 x 8 inches
26.7 x 20.3 cm
OL 14

Norma Oliver
Untitled Portrait #32, 1950
Mixed media, collage/paper
8 x 10.5 inches
20.3 x 26.7 cm
OL 15

RHIZOME (September 10 - October 10, 2015)

RHIZOME:  NEW GROWTH AT CAVIN-MORRIS GALLERY

September 10 - October 10, 2015

Cavin-Morris Gallery is pleased to welcome and highlight new work and a particularly rich group of new artists to the gallery in our Fall 2015 opening exhibition, Rhizome:  New Growth at Cavin-Morris Gallery.  The artists in this exhibition further expand our international Western and non-Western roster.

Some of the self-taught artists showing first time with us are Zinnia Nishikawa from California; Ilya Natarevich from St. Petersburg, Russia; Guyodo from Port-au-Prince, Haiti; Caroline Demangel from France; and Paul Kai Shröder and Anja Scheffler-Rehse from Germany.  We will be showing new or previously unseen works by trained and untrained artists, including Kriangkrai Konghanun from Bangkok, Thailand; Cuban-born José Bedia; Peruvian-born Kukuli Velarde; Angolan born Franck Lundangi; Luboš Plný and Karel Havlíček from Czech Republic; Noviadi Angkasapura from Indonesia; and USA artists Norbert Kox, JB Murray, Kevin Sampson, and Gregory Van Maanen. 

Weaving the works together is a sense of storytelling in a myriad of languages that become translated visually into universal forms.  Each artist takes an integral essence of his or her culture, usually mythical or visionary, and abstracts it into timeless contemporary forms.  We as viewers are given the privilege of appreciating the work on its deep formal values alone or by understanding the complex sources of its cultural conversations.  If we give it our full attention the roots expand ever outwards and we grow with it as well.

New book by gallery artist Christine Sefolosha

http://sefolosha.com/publications/

HYPERALLERGIC

Check out Edward Gomez's review of our summer shows in Hyperallergic!

http://hyperallergic.com/226050/a-chelsea-double-feature-paper-meets-clay-on-homegrounds-turf/

Check out this great interview with Gregory Van Maanen

Courtesy of Jeff Wolf

RAW VISION

c/o Raw Vision, Summer 2015, issue 86.

ENFLAMED: New Ceramics at Cavin-Morris Gallery

ENFLAMED: New Ceramics at Cavin-Morris Gallery

June 18 – August 14, 2015

We are pleased to present ENFLAMED: New Ceramics at Cavin-Morris Gallery.

The challenge of this exhibition was to continue showing ceramic sculpture outside its utilitarian function, yet still to be completely in touch with its original material: Earth.  We did not want the clay to serve merely as a platform for paint, or surface, or shape, but to continue speaking its own language.  We set out to find great artists for whom form, surface, and technique, no matter how abstract or sculptural, never lost its ceramic integrity; from the eternal simplicity of the work of Akihiro Nikaido with his classic forms and sophisticated patina while still showing his fingerprints and direct connection to his physical process, to the streamlined almost aerodynamic precision of Simcha Even-Chen's mastery of the dramatic raku process.  Also using raku firing to a completely different affect is Susan Halls, who manages to capture the quiet savageness of the animal forms she sculpts.

We chose sculptors whose work was as different from each other as possible.  We were fascinated by Mitch Iburg’s explorations of local clays fired to their ashy extremes, by the carved subtleties of Tim Rowan’s pieces which are always monumental despite size, by the wise rhythmic landscapes built through rough beautiful repetition in the large sculptures by Sarah Purvey, by the foamy mineral madness of Eddie Curtis' manipulations of porcelains, by Rafa Perez's unending shape-shifting, in this case combining metal and earth, by the innate spiritual poetry of Melanie Ferguson’s meditations on landscape and the sea, by the stark biomorphic undulations of Rebecca Buck’s abstractions, by the powerful conceptual yet very personal pulse-quickening figural sculptures of Kukuli Velardi, by the way Lesley McInally’s pieces refer to walls and street art and abstract painting and without losing sight of their clay origins, by the  almost Mesolithic structures of the work of Youngbin Lim introduced to us by Pragmata Gallery in Japan,  and the increasing surface power and abstraction of newly fired work by Akira Satake.

This is a global exploration.  We are privileged to work with these important artists and honored by their agreement to participate.

For further information, please call 212-226-3768, or e-mail info@cavinmorris.com.

JAPAN: ART BRUT

JAPAN: ART BRUT

June 18 – August 14, 2015

Cavin-Morris Gallery has been involved in showing Non-Mainstream art from Japan as part of its programs for close to eight years but it was not until we came across the work of the important visionary M'onma that the breadth of the work and the scope of future discoveries from Japan and all across Asia fell into place for us.

Japan is a country now first realizing it has this rich vein of artwork running through it with all the variety and nuances found in Western Art Brut.  It also very much speaks the language of Japanese culture.  Whether the artist spent his or her time walking the mountains and sleeping in Shinto Temples as M'onma did, or went to a facility that supplied materials and a shelter in which to create, the work has never lost its homeground.

We organized this by no means encyclopedic exhibition from our own archives as a precursor to a more definitive and wider ranging exhibition at a later date.  Featuring first the dream archaeology of M'onma we branched out to include the power and beauty of language as image and image as language.  M'onma actually often hides calligraphy in his work but it often only has a visual reference without a specific meaning.  In fact, this is part of the visual fascination of this exhibition in its showcasing the many facets of how an expanded sense of calligraphy can communicate.  Each of these ten artists: Akinori Yoshida, Eiichi Shibata, Hiroe Kittaka, Hirotaka Moriya, M'onma, Tae Takubo, Terao Katsuhiro, Yukio Miyashita and Yuich Saito talk to us in a universal tongue that maintains its indigenous integrity and yet draws us in essentially and completely.

ENFLAMED: NEW CERAMICS AT CAVIN-MORRIS

ENFLAMED: New Ceramics at Cavin-Morris Gallery

June 17 – August 14, 2015

We are pleased to present ENFLAMED: New Ceramics at Cavin-Morris Gallery.

The challenge of this exhibition was to continue showing ceramic sculpture outside its utilitarian function, yet still to be completely in touch with its original material: Earth.  We did not want the clay to serve merely as a platform for paint, or surface, or shape, but to continue speaking its own language.  We set out to find great artists for whom form, surface, and technique, no matter how abstract or sculptural, never lost its ceramic integrity; from the eternal simplicity of the work of Akihiro Nikaido with his classic forms and sophisticated patina while still showing his fingerprints and direct connection to his physical process, to the streamlined almost aerodynamic precision of Simcha Even-Chen's mastery of the dramatic raku process.  Also using raku firing to a completely different affect is Susan Halls, who manages to capture the quiet savageness of the animal forms she sculpts.

We chose sculptors whose work was as different from each other as possible.  We were fascinated by Mitch Iburg’s explorations of local clays fired to their ashy extremes, by the carved subtleties of Tim Rowan’s pieces which are always monumental despite size, by the wise rhythmic landscapes built through rough beautiful repetition in the large sculptures by Sarah Purvey, by the foamy mineral madness of Eddie Curtis' manipulations of porcelains, by Rafa Perez's unending shape-shifting, in this case combining metal and earth, by the innate spiritual poetry of Melanie Ferguson’s meditations on landscape and the sea, by the stark biomorphic undulations of Rebecca Buck’s abstractions, by the powerful conceptual yet very personal pulse-quickening figural sculptures of Kukuli Velardi, by the way Lesley McInally’s pieces refer to walls and street art and abstract painting and without losing sight of their clay origins, by the  almost Mesolithic structures of the work of Youngbin Lim introduced to us by Pragmata Gallery in Japan,  and the increasing surface power and abstraction of newly fired work by Akira Satake.

This is a global exploration.  We are privileged to work with these important artists and honored by their agreement to participate.

"Text Made Visible in the Works of Self-Taught Artists" by Brooke Davis Anderson

Click here to read the full article.

AVATARS OF ATCHE

AVATARS OF ATCHE:  

ANCESTRAL TOTEMS FROM TOGO AND BENIN

(MAY 7 - JUNE 13, 2015)

Cavin-Morris Gallery is honored to present an exhibition of magic and spirit expressed in intense and powerful works of art from Western Africa.  This work is all about process and intention.  It is an animistic magic that relies on Nature for its material and spiritual sources - for healing, for love, for midwifery, for remembrance, for power, for cultural resistance, and ultimately for finding a balance in human nature.  We have two kinds of objects in this exhibition with the focus on the ancestral poles that mark the safe boundaries of a village or serve to call down protective energies when placed outside a home.  The Vodun sculptures are more personal and have to do with the immediate control of Nature and one's personal well-being.  Always covert, Vodun is more in the open now.  These pieces do not represent the court art we associate with the royalty of Benin, it is the vernacular art of common people struggling to survive in a contemporary world.

Part of the exhibition includes a large selection of magic and spirit objects from the Jean-Jacques Mandel Collection from France.  This work is primarily from Benin and Togo. Often covered with a thick sacrificial patina, charged with metal, and the binding powers of ropes, these pieces from the early to mid-Twentieth Century demonstrate that Vodun is still alive, highly functioning, and changing in the contemporary Pan-African world.  It is an art in movement....never finished.

This art has developed in tandem with the vernacular arts of the New World.  There has been a constant conversation between religions in the African diaspora from the very outset....from the Americas to Asia.

For further information, please contact: 212-226-3768, or info@cavinmorris.com.

Forest Amuletum: New Sculpture by Ghyslaine and Sylvain Staelens

FOREST AMULETUM: New Sculpture by Ghyslaine and Sylvain Staelens

(MAY 7 - JUNE 13, 2015)

Ghyslaine and Sylvain Staelens make sculpture unlike anyone else in the world of art, trained or untrained. They are untrained. Their work seems steeped in ancient European history, especially from the marginalized viewpoints of mysterious hermits, heretic witches and pilgrims of no obvious religion, with a touch of organic Star Wars thrown in. Much of this has to do with their taking in the lore of the isolated part of volcanic France they chose to live after fleeing the urban madness of Paris. 

In their sparsely populated village is an old church dedicated to the Black Virgin, whose roots go back to ancient Portugal. Although the statue of the Virgin is now ensconced in a French museum, the 12th Century church, once a destination point for pilgrims, is still there. The landscape has absorbed the mystery and vitality of those earlier days, as the Staelens have absorbed the landscape into their process, making tough and poetic sculpture from materials they gather and recycle.

Their sculptures come from the forest. They do not tell us who or what they are, they do not give away any information other than what is told by the pieces themselves; by the hooded garments they wear, the spears they carry and the composure of their bodies, and the basic materials—exposed lava, metal, stones, wires and textiles--in surprising variety and complexity. Some of them are mounted, half horse, half-human.

The sculptures appear as beings that have made their homes in a real forest, in a cultural dance between dimensions, they will decide if you can enter; if they choose you, they will protect you forever. Though medieval at first glance, they are very much in the present. Nothing ever looked like them. They own whatever space they guard. They protect integrity.

For further information, please contact: 212-226-3768, or info@cavinmorris.com.

TRIBAL ART WEEK

Tribal Art Week is upon us! Stop by the gallery to see

Avatars of Atche: Ancestral Totems from Togo and Benin

FOREST AMULETUM: NEW SCULPTURE BY GHYSLAINE AND SYLVAIN STAELENS

FOREST AMULETUM:
New Sculpture by Ghyslaine and Sylvain Staelens

(MAY 7 - JUNE 13, 2015)

Ghyslaine and Sylvain Staelens make sculpture unlike anyone else in the world of art, trained or untrained. They are untrained. Their work seems steeped in ancient European history, especially from the marginalized viewpoints of mysterious hermits, heretic witches and pilgrims of no obvious religion, with a touch of organic Star Wars thrown in. Much of this has to do with their taking in the lore of the isolated part of volcanic France they chose to live after fleeing the urban madness of Paris. 

In their sparsely populated village is an old church dedicated to the Black Virgin, whose roots go back to ancient Portugal. Although the statue of the Virgin is now ensconced in a French museum, the 12th Century church, once a destination point for pilgrims, is still there. The landscape has absorbed the mystery and vitality of those earlier days, as the Staelens have absorbed the landscape into their process, making tough and poetic sculpture from materials they gather and recycle.

Their sculptures come from the forest. They do not tell us who or what they are, they do not give away any information other than what is told by the pieces themselves; by the hooded garments they wear, the spears they carry and the composure of their bodies, and the basic materials—exposed lava, metal, stones, wires and textiles--in surprising variety and complexity. Some of them are mounted, half horse, half-human.

The sculptures appear as beings that have made their homes in a real forest, in a cultural dance between dimensions, they will decide if you can enter; if they choose you, they will protect you forever. Though medieval at first glance, they are very much in the present. Nothing ever looked like them. They own whatever space they guard. They protect integrity.

For further information, please contact: 212-226-3768, or info@cavinmorris.com.

MAY 2015 AT CAVIN-MORRIS GALLERY

SANDRA SHEEHY AND ANNA ZEMÁNKOVÁ: BOTANICAL at John Michael Kohler Arts Center

SANDRA SHEEHY AND ANNA ZEMÁNKOVÁ: BOTANICAL

(February 15 - August 30, 2015)

JOHN MICHAEL KOHLER ARTS CENTER

608 New York Avenue
Sheboygan, WI 53081
P 920.458.6144 F 920.458.4473

The works of both Sandra Sheehy (UK) and Anna Zemánková (1908–1986) draw inspiration from plant life and garden scenes. Sheehy makes felted wall pieces as well as delicate sculptures reminiscent of cocoons from chicken wire, fabric, and paper, which she later encrusts with fabric, stitching, beads, sequins, and shells. Anna Zemánková’s embroideries on paper suggest botanical illustrations and reveal nature’s more mystical side. Both artists, with some measure of spontaneity, allow the imagery of the outdoor world to unfold before the viewer. Shown together, their works disclose intangible, and spiritual aspects of the plant world.

http://www.jmkac.org/

VODUN, VODOU CONJURE Online Catalog

Click here to view our online catalog for

VODUN, VODOU, CONJURE: The Animistic Arts of the African Diaspora