denny History & Criticism

Phyllis Bramson's lecture at SOFA/Outsider 2011 show: "Henry Darger's Bright and Guilty Place, (contemporary propositions about his influence.)" Bramson draws parallels between her own mainstream work, tinged with outsider esthetics, and Darger's outsider paintings. Both of them borrow from the Dick and Jane style manual of cute girls and both take it in provocative directions, Bramson into lush naughtiness, Darger to his 15145-page, "The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What is known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco-Angelinian War Storm, Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion," with its disturbing watercolor fantasy war reportage. Bramson's position is wonderment regarding his aesthetic heft, since she considers him one of the important artists of the 20th century. Bramson's illustrated lecture is an insider take on an outsider master, and on the roots of similar strains in her own work. She describes how her childhood home (with her father's collection of erotic paintings and sculpture), reading and being affected by The Brothers Grimm fairy tales, and her own steeping in classical erotic art traditions from India and east asia have all affected her visual thinking. This video program, including a unique illustration of Darger's apartment, courtesy of Intuit, The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art, and some back and forth with gallerist Carl Hammer in the audience, is an improvement on the stultifying History of Slides 202 that has turned so many college ...