AVAM: Building #3

 I mentioned that the American Visionary Art Museum has a campus with three buildings.  The second building is primarily an event space.  A place for gatherings, celebrations, weddings that can be rented out.

To get to Building #3 you cross a patio flanked by a little sculpture garden with some characteristically whimsical works of art.  This open onto the "Bird" plaza with a giant mosaic egg, a four-story tall crane, and a ginormous nest that is also a balcony.  A couple of smaller bird sculptures accompany this trio.

The third building is far more open, barn-like, and houses mostly larger items from the permanent collection.  There are also offices and a pair of large classroom/work spaces on the second floor.  Among AVAM's many community outreach programs are art-making classes/happenings geared to various groups, especially children.  Some highlights:

THE LITTLE SCULPTURE GARDEN

THE "BIRD" PLAZA

BUILDING #3

Your initial impression

A collection of dozens of small mechanical carved sculptures under the heading: "Cabaret Mechanical Theatre"

One of the most iconic works in the museum's collection:
"Divine" by Andrew Logan

A nod to Baltimore's most famous "street" art, the painted screen!

I wonder if the duck in the sculpture garden is a distant cousin?

"Symphony in Wood" (1977-1999) by James Chandler

Once a singer in the company of Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra, Chandler gave up the stage for an executive job and a family of 5, but spent the last 22 years of his life methodically creating this sculpture.  He died shortly after it was finished.

"God Is Love" Balloon

AVAM: Focus Exhibition - Good Sports

 One of the more unique aspects of the American Visionary Art Museum is how it manages its main exhibition space.  Each year it chooses a single theme and then curates one show around that theme that hangs for the duration of the year.  The current offering is "Good Sports: The Wisdom & Fun of Fair Play."  I have to say that of all of the shows I've seen over the years, this one is the thinnest.  It features the fewest artists and the works displayed often lack a certain magic that I have come to anticipate.  That said, it was still thoughtful and there are beautiful and interesting works of all sorts to see and delight in.  I'm including an image of curator Gage Branda's statement of concept.  You should be able to enlarge it enough to read it for yourself if you are so inclined.  

Some highlights.

untitled by Manuel Bauman, n.d.

"Lincoln Financial Field" by Kambel Smith, 2019

foreground: "Christmas Eve Truce in the Snow" by Tom Duncan, 1984

"Christmas Eve Truce in the Snow" DETAIL

Vintage Pinball Games

Various Illustrated Baseballs by George Sosnak

"New York New York" by Benny Carter, n.d.

"Hit The Road Jack!" by Ben Sakoguchi, 2005

AVAM: Icarus Staircase

 One of the stand-out attributes of the first building at the American Visual Arts Museum (There are three buildings) is a dramatic open-riser marble half-circular staircase (how's that for a description?) that I will call the Icarus Staircase.  In two sections, it takes guests from the first to third floors in style.  Concave marble lined walls provide an elegant place for works of art to accompany the climber.  A larger than life bronze Icarus with wings of inlaid mirrors and colored glass forever slowly descends between the floors, while natural life flows down for a dome of skylights.  It is truly a work of art in its various components all on its own.

Looking up from the first floor.

And back down from the second!

Icarus wrapped in his wounded wings plummets toward earth.

The art between the second and third floors.

The view back down from the top!

AVAM: American Visionary Art Museum - Perm Col Highlights

The American Visionary Art Museum is like no other museum in America.  Its collection takes the quaint notion of the untrained "primitive" artist and tosses in a range of issues around mental health and well-being.  It thrives on artists who are obsessive and compulsive in their pursuits either creatively or ideologically.   The art can be about a process or a product that promotes a profoundly held belief.  Sometimes it's about an experience, too.  A moment in time or an event that so dramatically scars the artist, they must spend the rest of their lives working out the meaning in search of respite.  You realize what might appear whimsical or kitschy holds, like an onion, many layers of representation.  This is a charming aspect of the art you experience at AVAM.  Most of it can be consumed at the level the viewer has capacity for and never leaves one feeling wanting.  

The first gallery, on the first floor, is dedicated to works from the permanent collection.  Most of these are "old friends" to me.  Let's start here.

 

In an alcove between the gallery's entrances a pair of sculptures and a pair of paintings by Jake "JT" McCord (1942- 2009).  McCord is a Black artist who grew up picking cotton and spent his life as a groundskeeper.  1984, he began painting after watching "some white ladies taking painting lessons at the Hawes Paint Store in Thomson, Georgia.  Today, the McDuffie Museum in Thomson curates and preserves his works for public viewing.

"USS LUSITANIA" by Wayne Kusy (1961 -      ).  This monumental sculpture is made entirely of flat-tipped toothpicks.  He first began building ships out of toothpicks in fifth grade.  Besides the Lusitania, Kusy have monumental models of the Queen Mary One and the Titanic.  When asked why, he replied, "It's a challenge.  There's a lot of people who like to climb mountains like Mount Everest...I choose to build models.  It's safer."

"Another Green World" by Johanna Burke (1972 -     ).  The exteriors are woven entirely of organic materials, bamboo, grasses, wheat, et. al.  These sculptures were created for display in Burgdorf Goodman's 2016 holiday windows.  Burke lives in Brooklyn and manages an artists collective dedicated to "natural elements, pattern and obsessive handicraft."

I confess, I failed to jot down notes on this bed.  Still, isn't it fun!?