Clyde Angel: Exposed!!! (and case closed?) at Judy Saslow Gallery

When the outsider's work is then raised up from the community art fair and placed in a gallery or museum, it usually has to do with the fact that the artist is A) crazy B) has no arms C) was born in a cave, or D) all of the above. And some of these crazy, armless, cave dwellers do in fact make good work, but more often than not it is a history that is being displayed or sold, along with the aforementioned potholder or rooster-shaped weather vane.

Clyde Angel: Exposed!!!, while sounding like a new special from everybody's favorite goth magician, probably lies somewhere between these two poles. The stated premise of the show, "exposure," is required as Clyde Angel has courted a fair share of controversy regarding his status as an "outsider artist"-- a topic that has been dealt with in great detail on this website and others. Suffice to say, his back-story: crazy, homeless, schizophrenic, whatever, was found wanting in the eyes of the arbiters of outsider-hood.  In answer to these scurrilous claims the now deceased Angel's son, Skip, provides a lengthy bio of his dad that is predominantly displayed on the wall of the gallery.

Lee Godie

I read it, pretty much because I had to, and it's charming and interesting and not really armless, but honestly, does it matter?  My desire when going to see art is to see art, not be told something is important because the artist's biography dictates that it should be. The work is okay. I've seen work like it before.  I find it more interesting when the material is given some room to play other than being simply shaped into a torso, face, and arms--one piece leaves the Bugler Tobacco can that composes part of the figure completely recognizable, adding some much needed color and humor to the work. The addition of a clip-on tie to "Big Figure" does much the same. I like it when Angel, or should I say Vernon Clyde Willits, his real name, allows some other materials into the mix, as in "Myself at Peace," where the sloppily painted face adds a knowing wink to the open-armed figure.

Be sure to check out the work hidden in the back corner of the gallery where several Chicago artists appear in celebration of Chicago Artist Month. One drawing is actually by the King of the Outsiders, Henry Darger, whose nutty history is completely overshadowed by his nuttier work. I saw a huge show of his at the American Folk Art Museum in New York a few years ago and I assure his quality is undisputed and his biography incidental. Lee Godie's drawings also attracted me, magnifying one of the more interesting happenstances of the outsider's work: the use of strange materials. There's something refreshing about seeing a confident drawing executed in ballpoint pen. That in the end may be the charm of the outsiders: they do things just a bit differently. Often, these differences can be less effective--artistic practice has developed for thousands of years, you'd figure they'd have figured something out--but sometimes these unconventional choices can surprise and enrich a viewer as the artist, armless or no, shares her completely new way of seeing.