Outsider Art Fair – Art Spiel

March 5, 2025March 19, 2025, by Melissa Stern

Insider Outsider

A painting of a person in a suit and tie

AI-generated content may be incorrect. — Adhemar Ahmad- portray 1969. Oilt, thin wooden board, unprimed canvas, staples. 32.5 x 24.25 2002

This past weekend New York saw the latest iteration of the Outsider Art Fair. Started in 1993, it has become a NYC institution and seems to be thriving after a few lean pandemic years. The Fair serves a field that has evolved a great deal over the past 30 years, and I really felt that this year more than in the past. As the number of now “blue chip” or “Old Master Self-Taught” artists dwindle, there’s been an influx of both younger artists and some who push against the definitions of self-taught in the first place. It’s a sticky subject and one that I have no answer to.

February 26, 2025March 3, 2025, by Vita Eruhimovitz

L.W.D: Rooted in LA

In Dialogue

L.W.D. sees himself as an observer of modern society—a world that has, in many ways, passed him by over the last three decades. L.W.D.’s work is rooted in the assertion of his personal identity within the fractured American society. His art reflects the painful shift from childhood to adulthood, a transformation that feels almost brutal, marked by the loss of innocence in the face of America’s historical realities. His perspective of the American way of life, capturing both the disappointments and fleeting joys, recalls the social commentary of Philip Guston—particularly in the simplicity of his cityscapes, yet with a distinctive handwriting, palette, and choice of subjects. L.W.D.’s visual language fuses the emotional character originating from blues lyrics and the iconic symbolism of Roy Lichtenstein’s pop art. Working within the tradition of the naive picturesque narrative, L.W.D. incorporates the humor of a comic book while maintaining his focus on the historical and the social.

March 12, 2023March 13, 2023, by Melissa Stern

Non-Profits Shine at The Outsider Art Fair

Creative Growth guy.jpg — From Creative Growth, Oakland, CA.

This past weekend marked the 30^th anniversary of the Outsider Art Fair, which debuted in NYC in 1993 at The Puck Building. Now housed at The Metropolitan Pavilion in Chelsea, it has come roaring back after a few quiet pandemic years.

Out of the sixty-four galleries exhibiting thirteen were representing non-profit organizations that work with developmentally challenged populations. For me these were the most exciting booths at the fair. The non-profits bring work that is consistently fresh and exciting. This year’s fair included organizations from Germany, Portland Oregon and Chicago that I had not seen in previous years. Several showed work among the most surprising and compelling at the Fair.

March 8, 2023March 4, 2023, by Flora Leigh

David Syre’s Black Drawings: The Inner Light

Artist Profile

A wall with pictures on it

Description automatically generated with medium confidence — Installation view, *David Syre: The Black Drawings*, SARAHCROWN New York, 2023.

The creative process is inexplicable. It doesn’t require anything but what the creator needs or chooses to use, and there are no guidelines as to how it works: Tolstoy felt he had to write “each day without fail.” Robert Rauschenberg often had The Young and the Restless on television at his studio. Virginia Woolf used to walk miles and miles. There is no telling what will ignite the process, but like a flash of lightning or fireworks in the night sky, it contains such a force that with the right conditions, generates sublime beauty. American outsider artist David Syre found this force when he was only a child in his Pacific Northwestern family home: The intuitive act of pushing crayons on paper on the floor of his grandmother’s kitchen remained in the heart of his practice. Syre’s art evolved and transformed in time, but the pastels remained––in the end, it turned into a persistent, continuing series of over 4500 pastel drawings on black paper. 40 of these drawings are now hanging on the walls of SARAHCROWN New York, a young contemporary gallery in Tribeca, and at the gallery’s booth at the Outsider Art Fair, gathered for two concurrent solo exhibitions titled David Syre: The Black Drawings.

July 16, 2020November 15, 2020, by Etty Yaniv

Center for Creative Works – Human Development

In Dialogue with Lori Bartol and Samantha Mitchell

Untitled (Herbies), by Doug Tan. Image credit: CCW/Virginia Fleming

Center for Creative Works (CCW) is a PA based unique professional art studio where artists with intellectual disabilities can access not only equipment and supplies but also dedicated mentorship, including help in promoting their work. Furthermore, it offers a
permeable space which prompts collaboration and idea sharing between CCW artists, artists outside of the studio, and community members at large. Lori Bartol, director, and Samantah Mitchell, exhibition coordinator, share with Art Spiel their vision for the organization and an insight into some of CCW artists’ work. Lori Bartol has recently revisited our discussion on how her team and artists have coped with the pandemic.