AWARD FOR RAW VISION
At a special ceremony at the Outsider Art Fair in New York, Raw Vision magazine editor John Maizels was presented with the annual Visionary Award from the American Folk Art Museum. Sam Farber, Jenifer Borum and Rebecca Hoffberger gave the opening addresses at the presentation which was sponsored and organised by Audrey Heckler. In part of his acceptance speech John Maizels said: ‘Outsider Art is the perfect synthesis of form and content. Its forms are spectacular – from the tiniest drawing on a scrap of toilet paper from the Prinzhorn Collection to the grandeur of Salvation Mountain. Yet the form is there for a reason – it is there as a vehicle for the soul – a complete expression of the deepest thoughts and emotions. All this contrasts with much of contemporary art where content has often dwindled away to leave form standing almost on its own with little meaning.’ He went on to say that Raw Vision affirmed the democracy of creativity and the genius of so-called ordinary people.

NEW FUNDING FOR ROCK GARDEN
The Chandigarh Authority’s Home and Tourism Secretary Ram Niwas has announced an ambitious plan for the complete update of Nek Chand’s Rock Garden.

A total budget of 17.4 million rupees ($350,000) will include expenditure on new pumping mechanisms for the gullys and waterfalls, increased security and staffing and for the construction of a whole new set of sculptures in the Phase Three area.

KERALA ROCK GARDEN RESTORED
The Nek Chand Foundation partnered with the Kerala Tourism Ministry to conserve and restore Nek Chand’s Rock Garden in Palakkad District in South India.

Built between 1993 and 1995, the 1.5 acre garden is located on the edge of a large botanical garden and artificial lake at Malampuzha Village near the Western Ghat Mountains. Conceived as a smaller version of the great Rock Garden in Chandigarh, the Kerala Garden is Nek Chand’s only garden in South India.

ALOISE IN JAPAN
Comme un papillon sur elle (Like a butterfly on her), one of Aloïse Corbaz’s many inscriptions is also the title of an unprecedented solo exhibition of her works currently touring throughout Japan. 42 works, most of them double sided and including one of the widest (more than 11m) will be on show with pieces coming from Aloïse’s doctors Hans Steck and Jacqueline Porret-Forel.

Borderless Art Museum No-Ma, 16 Nagahara-chokami, Omihachiman-shi, Shiga.
February 3 2009 – May 10 2009.
www.no-ma.jp/about/english.html  

The Watari Museum of contemporary Art, 3-7-6 Jingumae, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo.
May 15 2009 – August 16 009.
www.watarium.co.jp/  

Hokkaido Asahikawa Museum of Art, Asahikawa, Hokkaido
October 24 2009 – January 14 2010.
www.dnp.co.jp/museum/doritsu/hokkaido-e.html

ULYSSES DAVIS AT AFAM IN NEW YORK
Ulysses Davis (1914–1990) was a Savannah barber who created a diverse but unified body of highly refined woodcarvings that reflect his deep faith, humour, and dignity

The Treasure of Ulysses Davis runs until September 6.

American Folk Art Museum, 45 West 53 Street, New York, NY 10019.
t: 212 265 104
www.folkartmuseum.org

AVAM: ART & SCIENCE
FOLLOWED BY LIFE & LIBERTY
The Marriage of Art, Science & Philosophy runs until September 6, celebrating links in the creative process found in all areas of life. The next exhibition Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness, curated by Roger Manley, opens on October 1. The quest for human rights and the search for personal fulfillment, as proposed in the 1776 American Declaration of Independence, provide the starting point the exhibition. Works by the last surviving descendant of the Tsars of Russia, Iroquois Indians, French Revolutionaries, illegal immigrants, Algerian War veterans, Guantánamo Bay detainees, Holocaust survivors, incarcerated prisoners, African-American civil rights activists and Iraqi doctors are among the 50 visionary artists to be featured.

FOLK FEST 16th ART FAIR
For the past 16 years Folk Fest has doubled its size and attendance and grown to over 100 exhibitors with visitor numbers expected to top 12,000. The annual fair has helped to make Atlanta the undisputed ‘Hub of Folk Art’. The opening Friday night meet and greet will include artists Woody Long, Charlie Lucas, Willie Jinks, Chris Clark, Mary Proctor Ruby Williams and the Meaders family.

August 14, 15, 16. Folk Fest, North Atlanta Trade Center 1700 Jeurgens Court Norcross, Georgia 30093.
t: 770 532 1115
www.slotinfolkart.com

MADELEINE LOMMEL
(1923 – 2009)

Madeleine Lommel was the main co-founder of L’Aracine, the French museum of Art Brut opened in Neuilly-sur-Marne, near Paris, in September 1984 and she played a key-role, ten years ago, in its transfer to Villeneuve-d’Ascq, near Lille, where it is expected to reopen next year in a spectacular new building.

Born in Paris, 10th arrondissement, in 1923, Madeleine Lommel, a major figure in the French field of Outsider Art, died on Tuesday, April 14, aged 85

MICHEL NEDJAR AT THURGAU
ANIMO! a comprehensive show of work by Michel Nedjar shows simultaneously three work areas of the Parisian artist, who is one of the most important representatives of Art Brut. Over one hundred paintings and graphics used on cardboard boxes, envelopes and scraps of paper, eighty dolls made of fabric remnants and experimental films give a profound insight into a fascinating life and work.

April 5 – September 13 2009.
Kunstmuseum Thurgau und Ittinger Museum, Kartause Ittingen, 8532 Warth, Switzerland.
t: + (41) 52 748 4120
www.kartause.ch

KUNSTHAUS KANNEN
Kunsthaus Kannen exhibits the exclusive works of two Outsider Artists, August Vibert (1922-2005) and Josef Schwaf (1928-2002), both part of the museum’s collection, are presented to a broad public for the first time. The works are characterized by figuration, some of which were created using models. In a chronological order the exhibition portrays the artistic development the two artists within the psychiatric clinic.
Until September 27.
Kunsthaus Kannen, Alexianerweg 9, 48163 Münster, Germany.
t: +49 (0)2501 966560
www.kunsthaus-kannen.de

COLLECTION DE L’ART BRUT
Art Brut Fribourgeois presents over 80 works by 10 recently discovered creators from the Swiss canton of Fribourg, showing those in the tradition of religious folk art and ex votos and others of a more traditional Art Brut nature – accompanied by photographs by Mario del Curto and films by Philippe Lespinasse and Andress Alvarez.

Until September 27.
Collection de l’Art Brut, Avenue des Bergières 11, 1004 Lausanne, Switzerland.
t: +41 (0)21 315 25 70.
www.artbrut.ch

EUROPEAN OUTSIDER FAIR FOLDS
Following allegations of financial malpractice and unpaid debts surrounding the EOAF’s Chief Financial Officer Jan Kiewiet de Jonge, the European Outsider Art Fair has disbanded after just one event. There were initial concerns regarding the Fair’s unjuried approach to their exhibitors and the falling out with the Gugging Art Brut Centre just before the first Fair opened in Vienna. Fair founder Huib van den Wingaard, who had a great commitment to the project, hopes that the Fair will able to resurrect itself at some time in the future.

MUSEUM IM LAGERHAUS
Ghostganmes – A composer‘s cosmological drawings at the Museum im Lagerhaus presents a completely unknown Outsider artist, Franz Hartl (1913-2003), whose carefully drawn cosmologies encompass an astrological, religious and musical interpretation of the world. His universe is divided into heaven and hell, God and Lucifer, the conflict between order and chaos, and good and evil.

Until July 7.
Museum im Lagerhaus, Davidstrasse 44, 9000 St Gallen, Switzerland.
t: +41 (0)71 223 5857
www.museumimlagerhaus.ch

PRINZHORN COLLECTION
Works by inmates of the Waldau institution from the collection of psychiatrist Walter Morgenthaler are on show including Adolf Wölfli and other Artists from the Asylum Waldau/Bern.

Until September 14.
Sammlung Prinzhorn, Voßstraße 2, D-69115 Heidelberg, Germany.
t: +49 (0)6221 564725.
www.prinzhorn.uni-de

INDIAN FOLK & TRIBAL ART
An(other) Story at the New Art Exchange is the first collective exhibition of its kind in the UK showcasing Folk and Tribal art from India, combining multiple art forms from all over the country. Even though artists in India have been practicing their folk and tribal art for centuries, the world at large has come to know about these women and men, and to consider them to be ‘artists’ only in the last fifty years.

May 2 – July 19, New Art Exchange, 39-41 Gregory Boulevard, Nottingham NG7 6BE, UK.
t: +44 (0)115 924 8630
www.thenewartexchange.org.uk