Alternative Guide to the Universe
11 June - 26 August 2013
The Hayward Gallery
Thirty-four years after it hosted the UK's first major exhibition of outsider art, the Hayward Gallery once again offered an alternative view of the world. Numbers, theories, futuristic architecture, new methods of healing; all things we expect from the brightest international minds. But in this alternative guide they come from equally bright but self-taught visionaries and self-proclaimed scientists, physicists, and architects, with a cameo from 'The Museum of Everything' who presented works by renowned Indian artist Nek Chand.
The journey through time and space began with the works of George Widener and Alfred Jensen as they explore and re-create the meaning behind numbers, codes, and calendars. Jensen was inspired by Pythagoras, Ancient Chinese, the Maya number systems, and Egyptian and Greek cultures - a far cry from the culturally excluded outsider described by Jean Dubuffet.
With a whole section dedicated to 'Fringe Physicists', along with James Carter's 'Periodic Table of Elements' and examples of alternative and holistic medicinal practices, the sciences form a large part of the exhibition. Emery Blagdon's 'Healing Machine' discards modern medicine by promoting the curative powers of the Earth's energies, and Guo Fengyi's 'painted prescriptions' depict energy flowing through the human body. In her eyes, they are instruments of healing.
Examples of 'outsider photography' include the humorous works of Chicago artist Lee Godie, who 'edited' her photo-booth pictures with a dash of lipstick here, or a darker eyebrow there, and Eugene Von Bruenchenhein's obsessive 1940's pin-up inspired depictions of his wife, Marie. Well known outsider artist Morton Bartlett's anatomically correct hand-made dolls are also represented in photographic form, with just one of the accomplished sculptures in-situ.
But it is Marcel Storr's towering utopias and quixotic architectural creations that really steal the show. Beautifully lit, the meticulously drawn buildings and palatial cathedrals tower above futuristic cities where the growing craze for skyscrapers seems to reach new, dizzying levels in such a way that for a brief moment, Storr's post-Holocaustal Parisian structures seem possible. Similarly, William Scott's urban re-imaginings of San Francisco - newly named 'Praise Frisco' by the artist - nudge at a deep desire for an alternative, exuberant world that chooses the church over corporate capitalism.
The exhibition is a display of the power of imagination, most aptly illustrated by 'gothic futurist' and hip-hop pioneer Rammellzee's 'Letter Racers', which depicts how the alphabet might look if the letters were to become mechanised and able to fly into battle. It is an innovative combination of art and science and re-imagined worlds, of artists and inventors who want to better understand the universe.
The journey through time and space began with the works of George Widener and Alfred Jensen as they explore and re-create the meaning behind numbers, codes, and calendars. Jensen was inspired by Pythagoras, Ancient Chinese, the Maya number systems, and Egyptian and Greek cultures - a far cry from the culturally excluded outsider described by Jean Dubuffet.
With a whole section dedicated to 'Fringe Physicists', along with James Carter's 'Periodic Table of Elements' and examples of alternative and holistic medicinal practices, the sciences form a large part of the exhibition. Emery Blagdon's 'Healing Machine' discards modern medicine by promoting the curative powers of the Earth's energies, and Guo Fengyi's 'painted prescriptions' depict energy flowing through the human body. In her eyes, they are instruments of healing.
Examples of 'outsider photography' include the humorous works of Chicago artist Lee Godie, who 'edited' her photo-booth pictures with a dash of lipstick here, or a darker eyebrow there, and Eugene Von Bruenchenhein's obsessive 1940's pin-up inspired depictions of his wife, Marie. Well known outsider artist Morton Bartlett's anatomically correct hand-made dolls are also represented in photographic form, with just one of the accomplished sculptures in-situ.
But it is Marcel Storr's towering utopias and quixotic architectural creations that really steal the show. Beautifully lit, the meticulously drawn buildings and palatial cathedrals tower above futuristic cities where the growing craze for skyscrapers seems to reach new, dizzying levels in such a way that for a brief moment, Storr's post-Holocaustal Parisian structures seem possible. Similarly, William Scott's urban re-imaginings of San Francisco - newly named 'Praise Frisco' by the artist - nudge at a deep desire for an alternative, exuberant world that chooses the church over corporate capitalism.
The exhibition is a display of the power of imagination, most aptly illustrated by 'gothic futurist' and hip-hop pioneer Rammellzee's 'Letter Racers', which depicts how the alphabet might look if the letters were to become mechanised and able to fly into battle. It is an innovative combination of art and science and re-imagined worlds, of artists and inventors who want to better understand the universe.