NYAB Event - Henry Darger Exhibition

Henry Darger Exhibition

Andrew Edlin Gallery

This event has ended.

Andrew Edlin Gallery presents Henry Darger, its third solo exhibition of the renowned self‐taught artist's work. The show, comprised of approximately two dozen works taken from the gallery's inventory and borrowed from private collections, encompasses some of Darger's very earliest experiments in collage, as well as an ample selection of his large‐scale, late‐career masterpieces. Among them, are several works that are being exhibited for the first time, including a panoramic composition that showcases creatures never before encountered in Darger's Realms of the Unreal: green‐skinned plant/human hybrids with vines and blossoming flowers growing from their girlish bodies.

Darger created an epic fantasy world in art and literature called The Realms of the Unreal, an extraterrestrial planet populated by sweet, courageous young girls, warmongering adults and a species of supernatural, fairy‐like beings called "Blengins." It first began as a novel that eventually reached more than 15,000 pages in length (microfilm files will be on view), but was soon accompanied by watercolor and pencil works of visual art that illustrated the novel. During Darger's lifetime, these artworks were never exhibited and it was only just before he died that his astounding, life‐long body of work was discovered and eventually revealed to an ever‐increasing and admiring public.

This exhibition provides an exceptional opportunity to observe the astonishing tension in Darger's compositions. In part, this is the result of the artist's dynamic use of hybrid forms and contrasting elements: children half‐girl half‐boy, adults as sadists and saviors, idyllic peaceful scenes and episodes of horrific violence, anthropomorphic clouds, vivid imagery and segments devoid of color, creatures half‐human and half‐animal.