Sunday, August 20, 2006

The Vivian Girls

I must go see this exhibit at the Frye. It looks fascinating and amazing.

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"Henry Darger (1892–1973) was a self-taught reclusive artist who created and inhabited an imaginary world through extensive writings, paintings, and drawings. After Darger’s death, his Chicago neighbor and landlord discovered and made public Darger’s previously unknown volume of work.

This solitary artist left behind several diaries and manuscripts including a six-part weather journal, an autobiography in eight volumes, and his 15,000-page illustrated epic, 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. Accompanied by watercolor paintings and collages, the novel focuses on a band of girls’ heroic efforts to free enslaved children held captive by an army of adults. The novel and its illustrations are whimsical and sinister in their depiction of war and peace and good versus evil."

1 comment:

The Sublibrarian said...

Wow. The Frye is getting edgier all the time. I used to think of it as the Museum of Boring Realist Art. I'll have to get there to see it. Might be nice to read Girls on the Run before going....