Art made by people who are “mentally, physically, and
developmentally disabled.” As an artist, I am hoping that the majority of the
artists in the show fall into the category of physically disabled, because Chuck
Close is physically disabled (which doesn’t actually sound like the right term these
days), and he has been able to make all kinds of impressive paintings. And clearly
not being able to hear wouldn’t necessarily hurt your making of visual art. But
man, the term “mentally and developmentally disabled” does seems to cast some
serious doubt on anyone who has put value into an artistic intention in the academic
sense of the word. Heck, it took me two viewings until I finally read the press
release to realize it was not just a decent summer group show, with Maureen
Clay’s papier-mâché rocks delicately painted with the speckled vibrancy of an alien
egg and William Scott’s faux (but maybe actually) naive hipster paintings of celebrities
that fall somewhere between fawning and critical. Either way, the disabled are
putting a lot of abled folks to shame.
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