Emery Blagdon: The New York Newcomer?

Clive Bell in his classic Art presented one of the most famous illustrations of the analytical school of aesthetics – the onion. The definition of art (essentially what the analytical school of aesthetics was searching for) is found as one peels away the “layers” of a piece of art, finding its true definition in its essential essence inside the “frame.” Gallery art became Art and everything else became therapeutic distractions because only those pieces that were created with this function made sense in an art gallery. More importantly for our purposes, it seems the literature, sculpture, of photography of the Great Plains have been abused by this technique of “judging” or evaluating a piece of art. If the art cannot be appreciated in a sterile environment (i.e. New York art gallery) where it has been stripped of its creative context then it is at most kitsch.

Emery Blagdon’s wire sculptures, as well as many other works in the “outsider artist” group, have been so marginalized. Blagdon and many other artists of the Great Plains, however, are beginning to receive some recognition – Blagdon’s sculptures have made it into the elite world of New York Art (capital-A, of course). But, does Blagdon’s acceptance into an official art gallery help or hurt his sculptures? Furthermore, should one applaud this “acceptance?”

The current contemplation model, rooted in Joseph Addison’s and Immanuel Kant’s theories of the eighteenth century, excludes anything outside the frame. Blagdon and the “outsider artist” group, on the other hand, have widened the frame, which in essence breaks down the dogma of the contemplation model because the intellectual comprehension of the piece is of secondary import. Blagdon’s frame is not only the four walls of the barn, but also the empty land surrounding the piece, creating a context where the piece itself, external environment, and observer are able to “interact.” The interaction of the three elements is what makes his purpose for the sculptures as “healing machines” possible.

The art of the Great Plains is an art of severe contrast and Blagdon’s is no exception. Moreover, Blagdon’s sculptures are the clearest expression of this contrast that we interacted with this weekend. The spacing of the sculptures is characteristic of an urban area where people are literally stacked one upon another. The Great Plains, as Cather and Conrad expressed in their short stories, is a place of severe emptiness, where the empty land runs longer than any eye can see. The medium similarly expresses this contrast. Wire sculpture does not have the requisite material for smooth transition from one angle to another. This starkness is also found on the Great Plains: one can travel for hundreds of miles without sight of another man and the chance of meeting another seems to be as flimsy as a bent wire and as obscure as the distances between the wires. Without the context of the shed the wire sculptures may merely be one man’s lunacy and another’s junk.

Can Blagdon et. al. receive their deserved respect without the environment of the Great Plains? It would be far too gratuitous to suppose that the very dirt of the Great Plains bequeathed Blagdon and many others inspiration. But, would it be too much to assume that the obscurity of other men and women and the immense emptiness of the Great Plains created an environment in which the clutter and starkness of a shed could relieve the suffering of loneliness? Maybe the beauty of Blagdon’s sculptures is not inside the shed, but created with the interaction between the material, the Great Plains, and the observer bring with her remembrance of the smallness of her exterior environment?