Pittsburgh Visionary Arts Festival: March 2009

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Welcome to the VAF blog!

This space is setup as a temporary informational tool until our website is released...

The Pittsburgh Visionary Arts Festival (VAF) will occur in August 7th, 8th and 9th of 2009! It will entail 50 individual artist booths spread along the main lawn of Schenley Plaza in Oakland. The festival's main sponsor is our own Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy, which has made an outstanding effort to make this vibrant event happen. We are also in the proccess of applying for a Sprout Fund Seed Award to help cover the high costs of such ambitious event. The Sprout Fund is now well known for supporting unique, innovative, independent initiatives in Pittsburgh, so we are hoping they are going to enjoy supporting this one!
The lineup of artists so far is amazing. I have setup a slide show of their works, even though these pictures definitely do not do justice to what these artists will be up to at the VAF!

The confirmed artists so far include:
Aimee Manion
Alberto J. Almarza
Ally Reeves
Ashley Brickman
Bob Ziller
Bill Davis
Bruce Brinker
Carlee Freeman
Christina Martine
Christine Bethea
Connie Cantor
Constance Merriman
Deanna Mance
Dean Cercone
Elin Lennox
Encyclopedia Destructica
Etta cettera
Gabe Felice
Ian Green
James Gyre
Jay Del Greco
Jesse Riesmeyer
Jonathan Brodsky
Jude Vachon
Juliana Morris
Kyle Ethan Fischer
Laura Gyre
Lowry Burgess
Mark Traughber
Matt Marino
Mike Budai
Morgan Cahn
Moshe Sherman
Randie Snow
Rose Clancy
Ryder Henry
Sebastian Van Gorder
Shaun Slifer
Sherry Rusinack
tENTATIVELY a cONVENIENCE
Tom Estlack
Troy Blum
Vanessa German

In addition, the VAF will be honored with the performance of tENTATIVELY a cONVENIENCE's HiTEC (Histrionic Thought Experiment Cooperative), an experimental orchestra composed of 20 or so visionary local artists, muscicians and mad scientists. HiTEC will give three performances to close each day of the festival, at 8pm, under Schenley Plaza's comfy Main Tent. Check out HiTEC on youtube.

Other Cool Features of the VAF:

1) "Tricksters”: This is a conceptual work created to represent the dance and movement fields of art in the VAF. I am now working on putting this together. A group of about 20 movement artists (I don't want to narrow the term to dancers) will take shifts throughout the festival weekend to perform this free-form piece. "Tricksters" are trained (and untrained) movement artists who will be in disguise as normal observers of the festival. Unexpectedly, the Trickster will spontaneously combust into statues, ballet dancing, contemporary contorsionism, monkey-mode and many other perception-pushing feats and treats, only to come back to normality in an instant. Their role is to challenge our perception of the boundaries of the physical body in public contexts, creating momentary escapes from consensus social reality into beautiful displays of freedom. I hope I am explaining this clearly for now. There will be a detailed description as well as a list of official Tricksters coming up soon.

2) "Micro-curation": I am truly exited about this idea, it came in a flash of inspiration. Of course I can't pull this off by myself, I need the participating artists. This concept involves the idea of each artist of the festival being both an artist and a curator. Each of them will be a host for an invited guest artist of their selection, for them to display one or two works. So they will select an artist (or anybody they decide) to bring a work to display in their booth. My realization was that, in doing this simple step, we will double the amount of exposure of beauty to the world (or something like this). Also, the visionary artists, will be able to share with us who they think is doing beautiful work out there. All the artist needs to do is think of a person and borrow one of their works to show, it is a completely symbiotic relation! I will not force anybody to be a micro-curator, but I proposed to the artists to think about the idea during this time. I think by August it could easily be an amazing initiative brought to full bloom.

General Info

The Pittsburgh Visionary Arts Festival (VAF) will occur in August 7th, 8th and 9th of 2009! It will entail 50 individual artist booths spread along the main lawn of Schenley Plaza in Oakland. Artists will display their work and be present in their booths to talk to people, from 12pm to 9pm. In addition, many artists will perform demonstrations, or will be at work during the VAF. Do not miss it! For more information visit:

www.pghvisionaryartsfestival.com

For directions and info about Schenley Plaza visit: http://www.pittsburghparks.org/schenleyplaza

Regarding the concept of "Visionary"

The American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore says: "Visionary art is like love, you know it when you see it". The Pittsburgh Visionary Arts Festival could not agree more with this statement, adding to it that "the definition of visionary art itself is like love: elusive and tricky as can be!"

It is important to clarify that the VAF hopes to be as inclusive as possible while still maintaining a distinction between its definition and conventional notions of art. We want to be able to include artists and non-artists from all different backgrounds, not just those who would traditionally be considered self-taught or "outsider artists", so the definition of visionary art becomes even trickier.

The VAF is hosting a huge diversity of minds, ranging from well-established professional artists and university professors to self-taught creators who have never shown their work publicly, or have no interest in the art market whatsoever. I encourage open mindedness toward the idea of "visionary", since it will be clear that the term covers a wide range of possibilities.

We like to envision that, within the greatest umbrella of "visionary art", one could interpret many different subjects and categories that are not synonyms, and which welcome and include terms and notions such as: outsider art, raw art, self-taught art, primitive art, folk art, psychedelic art, mystical art, shamanic art, religious art, sacred art, cosmic art, anti art, kid's art!, spontaneous art, automatic art, etc. As many as these categories are, one can easily say that there are still many other forms of art that don't particularly qualify as visionary.

In general, the intent of the VAF is not to be exclusive of any specific art form or artist, instead hoping to be embracive by accepting and promoting all artwork, but especially that which may not be as easily and commonly approached, understood and appreciated by typical norms and standards. So in this sense the VAF will favor people who, in one way or another (and as a principle) question, expand or transcend the consensual norms and practices of art.

For now it is also important to clarify that, in order to select the artists, the VAF often leaned on a couple of parameters:
••The existence of a uniting vision is often a feature of visionary art. The work often has a mission, a purpose, or a dimension of reality that may have been overlooked by the status quo, or may seem of pressing importance to the artist. This notion of purpose or vision differs from artist to artist sometimes radically. While much visionary art is concerned with spiritual, mystical, shamanic and existential realities, oftentimes the work is also centered on social, cultural, political or environmental concerns. Many other times too, the work is not even mental or logical whatsoever, but the result of a spontaneous or intuitive mindset, brought to being by pure play. In this way, the spectrum of visionary art is wide ranging from very down to earth, visibly-functional approaches, to very ethereal and imaginative dimensions; its essence as diverse and malleable as the human soul.

••Devotion as a fundamental principle and driving force of the work is seen as evidence of a true and honest intent and practice in visionary art. The work is a clear physical outcome of uniquely arduous work, a very strong belief or passion, a conviction in a greater or important truth, an unbreakable commitment or some combination of the above. Devotion means that the artist makes it clear in the work itself, that he/she has a strong commitment and need to put a most delicate and persistent care into every second of the work. It also may mean that this work is to continue forever, or become fused with every other aspect of the artist’s life. This is not to say that devotion in visionary art cannot be manifested also as a subconscious or compulsive act, and may at times even seem completely detached or careless.

••Uniqueness, innovation and a general deviation from widely validated methods is also often a factor in aiding to identify visionary art. This is a very tricky matter since visionary art rarely intends to be different or purposefully go out of its way to appear original. The artist’s uniqueness is something that comes as a natural progression to the artist’s vision and not as a forced, ideated strategy. Visionary innovation is less a matter of attempting to do something new and more a manifestation of true passion and fearlessness from or disinterest in consensus agreement.

While not necessarily on purpose, visionary art is often innovative in at least one or many of these categories:
1) The artist’s use of materials, both in collection and implementation of mediums.
2) The artistic processes of creation, which are almost always artist-specific and are many times non-traditional, invented, ritualized, automatic or even accidental.
3) The artist’s concept or statement which may display unfamiliar, unknown, revolutionary, controversial or unpopular subject matters and concerns.

There are hundreds of artists (in Pittsburgh alone), who represent and engage in a visionary approach to art. It is the intent of the VAF to find and highlight these artists while praising the hard work and vision of ALL ARTISTS. The VAF would be the first to say that ALL ART IN ITSELF IS VISIONARY, as long as we continue promoting the liberation of ART from any and all forms of ties, cages or chains.

Finally, the VAF hopes to mature and improve, and will therefore always take risks, welcome new ideas and suggestions, and accept corrections, criticism and challenges.

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

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