Celebrating a notable artist... who also happens to be "special."

December 3, 2014 10:39 AM

Fiber artist Judith Scott's style of assemblage sculpture may not be your cup of tea, but even her critics are impressed with the complexity and originality of her found object bundles. The Brooklyn Museum of Art is running the first US survey of her works through March. Her work is every bit on par with more famous assemblage artists like Robert Rauschenberg, made more remarkable by the fact that she was not only a mostly untrained "oustider artist," but Ms. Scott was born with Down's Syndrome and was almost completely deaf and mute.
posted by cross_impact (9 comments total)

The work is just striking. It could easily feel messy or disjointed, but it doesn't, to me.
posted by xingcat at 10:52 AM on December 3, 2014 [1 favorite]

Favourite added, all right. These are wondrous and beautiful and I know I would never have learned about them without this post.
posted by Quilford at 11:03 AM on December 3, 2014

It's good to see "outsider artist" almost reflexively put in quotes these days. "Visionary artist" was an improvement, but hopefully we're on the way to a time when artists like Judith Scott will just be considered as "artists".
posted by ryanshepard at 11:05 AM on December 3, 2014 [1 favorite]

Huh. I'd seen a couple of her pieces but had no idea what the backstory was.

"It's good to see "outsider artist" almost reflexively put in quotes these days. "Visionary artist" was an improvement, but hopefully we're on the way to a time when artists like Judith Scott will just be considered as "artists"."

There's often a pretty clear distinction between artists who work within the system of professional arts and art history and those who are usually self-taught and "outside" of the general contemporary art conversation. I tend to think that "outsider art" is more accurate in describing the artists' relationships with art institutions, whereas one can be entirely within the system and be a visionary. "Naive art" and "art brut" have their own problems.
posted by klangklangston at 12:09 PM on December 3, 2014 [2 favorites]

I feel like the outsider label is kind of important, myself - it tells me that this person isn't coming from within the system and I should give what they're doing extra time to sink in because of it's unfamiliarity.
posted by zug at 12:35 PM on December 3, 2014 [2 favorites]

I was just looking at a few of her pieces at the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore last week! I really liked them - can't quite explain why, I don't have a good art vocabulary, but they were definitely striking and stood out among many other interesting artists grouped in the same area of the museum. Thanks for posting this, I'm happy to see her featured here.
posted by Stacey at 12:45 PM on December 3, 2014

I love her sense of color. Pieces have definite color themes; creams and neutrals, bright primary colors, sleepy blue and grey tones.
posted by Juliet Banana at 12:56 PM on December 3, 2014 [2 favorites]

Her work is brilliant, and we lost her too soon. One of the most significant American sculpturists of her era, without any doubt.
posted by ten pounds of inedita at 3:33 PM on December 3, 2014

Great post, thanks. I would have never known about her artwork and it's really affecting.
posted by en forme de poire at 11:49 PM on December 3, 2014