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Underground > Art, Fashion & Design >

Henry Darger

  
 
Ethan Hawke
12:30 / 22.04.02
What do people think about the phenomenon that is Henry Darger? After reading this article in the Village Voice, I'm pretty fascinated by this man.

For those who don't know, Henry Darger was discovered, after his death, to have written a 15,145 page novel, entitled 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, illustrated with copius eerie drawings that centered around the travails of the titular Vivian Girls, who were drawn as pre-pubescent naked girls, with the addition of penises.

Darger is apparently the ur-outsider artist, and a lot of ink has been spilled w/r/t his work. Having not had seen the work in person, and not having read much about him, I'm curious to hear what people think of him.
From the Voice article, I sort of have this romantic picture of him as a truly pure artist, one whose vision was untainted by the world of commerce and unecumbered by repression. Or maybe his work was a heroic effort to sublimate his perhaps murderous and pedophilic impulses.
 
 
priya narma
14:06 / 22.04.02
I was wondering when Darger might show up here. I actually started to create a thread on him a few weeks ago but had to give it up cause I just didn't feel eloquent enough to talk about him.

Here's a link with some of his artwork....Realm of the Unreal and Metafilter had lots of great links and an interesting discussion about his work/life. The Vivian Girls is thought to be the longest book ever written (I mean we're talking 15145 pages single spaced here!) and it's reported to be extremely violent as well.

His motives are fairly obscure since his work was discovered only after his illness/death, but my money would be on the sublimation of his 'murderous and pedophilic impulses'. There seems to be some underlying story of a missing/murdered young girl who's image is a recurring theme throughout his illustrations. He was even said to have had a shrine dedicated to the image of this girl in his apartment. There have been some who think he may have had something to do with her death and that his obsession with her image has something to do with the Vivian Girls.

The whole lil girls with penises thing is another thing that a lot of people have speculated on. Some think that he didn't know what naked women actually looked like so the addition of penises to girls was merely a product of his innocense to the sexual world. Of course that would negate his being responsible for the disappearance of the girl mentioned above.

Darger really is too facinating! His process of creating his illustrations for his book is also another interesting facet of the story. He created transparancies, at this time this would have been a great cost to a man that worked as a janitor, from traced figures from newspaper ads to use in his work which is why a lot of the girls and other figures looked the same. He was so totally dedicated to every little thing that the mind trully boggles! And to think that he never (?) had any intention of showing or selling his work to anyone. I think that is what has really stuck in my head about him...he actually created this whole world for himself alone. In a way it makes me feel like I have stumbled upon someone else's and I almost feel guilty enjoying it or talking about it. Like it's none of my business or something...it's just that personal.

In anycase, has anyone out there actually seen his work close up? I understand that it has shown a few places in the US. I'm keeping my fingers crossed in hopes that the Warhol, here in PGH, might someday show his work...sigh...

thanks for bringing this up, Dilettantism!!
 
 
priya narma
14:11 / 22.04.02
see? i told you i wasn't eloquent enough to talk about Darger!

There is a sentence in my previous post that should read: "In a way it makes me feel like I have stumbled upon someone else's diary and I almost feel guilty enjoying it or talking about it." I get all caught up in something and start leaving out KEY words...sheesh!
 
 
Saveloy
15:31 / 22.04.02
3jane, thanks for the link. I'd heard of this before but not seen the art - it's amazing. The surrealists would've loved it. This one reminds me of a Max Ernst collage (there's one he did with, um, hats at the end of tubes that looks remarkably similar):

  
 
netbanshee
17:19 / 22.04.02
...was talking about Darger with a friend of mine a bit ago...am also very taken by the personal nature of the work. Haven't seen any of the work 1st hand but would be interested in finding out where to go see it...was thinking about seeing some Basquiat @ Spike Gallery in NY this weekend...anyone know where this might be found? Would be nice to have a few places to go...
 
 
Tom Coates
21:45 / 22.04.02
 
 
Jack Fear
03:07 / 23.04.02
Hm. I've been interested in Darger since reading a littlke piece on him in Time some years ago. There's the whole Darger-was-psychologically-a-serial-killer school of thought (which, frankly, calls to mind that doofus from Suede saying he was "a bisexual who's never had a homosexual experience"), but I'm not sure I buy it.

The cultural forces that shaped Darger's art are pretty apparent, I think: the American Civil War, which haunted the popular imagination of his time (the generation of its immediate aftermath) as Vietnam did in the 1980s; and perhaps most importantly his Catholicism—which bequeathed him a supply of horrendously graphic accounts of martyrdoms (courtesy of many popular books on the lives of the saints), which doubtless inspired much of the violent imagery of The Vivian Girls, and also a deep mistrust of sexuality and the body, which may have had something to do with his distortions of the female form.


Factor in the loss of his own sister at an early age, then taking this missing girl Elsie Paroubek as a sort of substitute for his sister... and the tendncy of all writers to use fiction to redress the wrongs of an indifferent reality...

One thing, for me, is certain: were Henry Darger alive today, he would no doubt have his own web-page. You can see this same kind of weird, creepy devotion in the many, many sites devoted to "the children who never made it home"... run Google searches on names like Holly Piirainen, or Molly Bish, and you get these dozens of pages with long, totemic lists of names and animated GIFs of burning torches... all that's missing is a spangled blengin or two.

Has anyone read John Ashbery's novel-in-verse Girls on the Run? It's inspired by/based on Darger's life and work. I've been purposely avoiding it because I've been trying to hatch a project of my own on a similar subject, and didn't want to poison the well: but since I don't seem to be getting anywhere with my own work, I wondered...
 
 
Ethan Hawke
11:54 / 23.04.02
Bizanchee - Some of Darger's work is on display at the American Folk Art Museum on West 53rd street until June. Do a web search for directions/hours to the museum.
 
 
Jack Fear
13:43 / 23.04.02
Oh, one more thing to add to my screed: the telling detail, the one that kills me, is the hundreds of empty Pepto-Bismoll bottles in Darger's apartment. For those unfamiliar with Pepto-Bismoll, it's an over-the-counter medication for upset stomach—a thick, bright-pink liquid.

A sign of a constant distress deep in the guts—an undiagnosed ulcer, maybe?—the pain of this wretched life literally eating the poor fucker from the inside.
 
 
grant
15:46 / 23.04.02
There's a Monks of Doom song about the Vivian Girls. It sort of makes sense after reading this.
 
 
netbanshee
16:42 / 23.04.02
...wow..pepto in that amount just adds to the creepiness. There's truly something unaltered and fascinating about this man. Hopefully the gallery turns out a feeling of his turmoil and sense of subcultural understanding...
 
 
Ria
19:10 / 23.04.02
I wrote the dialogue for and co-plotted the first (and last?) issue of a comic book biography of the man which you can read about in the merchandise section here:

http://www.chromefetus.com

at the time we worked on it the latest two books on Darger had yet to come out so we filled in details we didn't know as well as changed known details with frivolous abandon.
 
 
Mystery Gypt
22:37 / 23.04.02
it's important to remember when looking at these reproductions that the majority of these images are on these MASSIVE sheets of paper, like 6 feet wide at least, and it all goes on and on and on.

he also had a 20,000 odd page journal devoted strictly to keeping track of the daily WEATHER throughout his life.
 
 
kid coagulant
15:05 / 03.06.02
Stumbled upon this exhibit at the American Folk Art Exhibit Museum this weekend. They've devoted an entire floor to Darger's work, w/ many of his large (2-sided) illustrations encased in glass at eye-level in the middle of the floor, so you could walk through it and kind of get lost in it. Strange and disturbing stuff. I think it's up until the end of June. It's worth checking out.
 
 
Ethan Hawke
15:21 / 03.06.02
Did you check out the drawers full of stuff that had his sources in them, Invix? it was so cool; they show how he copied girls from coloring books and adverts by tracing them and transfering them with artists's carbon sheets.
 
 
kid coagulant
15:34 / 03.06.02
Yeah, those drawers freaked me out. Those naked pictures of Shirley Temple in the bathtub and all that. And the detail on those illustrations was amazing, how he'd draw or trace out flowers and then paste them onto the paper. Quite bizarre.
 
 
jmw
16:17 / 12.02.05
I just wanted to revive the Henry Darger thread.

Annalee Newitz has written a new article on Darger.

The logical conclusion of her piece, if you draw it out, is that people like Darger will cease to exist as the internet will remove their "outsider" status and reduce the impetus to be creative.

Any thoughts?

J...
 
 
Our Lady Has Left the Building
16:19 / 14.02.05
Well, I haven't read the article yet but every technological innovation has provoked similar sentiments.
 
 
Spaniel
11:08 / 15.02.05
The logical conclusion of her piece, if you draw it out, is that people like Darger will cease to exist as the internet will remove their "outsider" status and reduce the impetus to be creative.

I think her argument is pretty confused, TBH.

In answer to your request for thoughts. Surely what we're talking about here is finding a community/audience? That being the case, I don't see the Internet as any more threatening to the creative process than joining an artists' retreat, getting a social life etc...
 
 
lekvar
02:04 / 16.02.05
As I understand it, "Outsider Artist" means someone who has developed as an artist outside of academia or established schools of artistic theory, or without formal training. As such, outsider artists are not lacking for outlets: Juxtapoz has been mining them like the gold they are for years, and I was working front desk at a gallery that specialized in outsider art 15 years ago, and the owner wasn't going bankrupt, I assure you.

So, with all the exciement over Darger's work, has anybody ever tried printing a collection, or assembled The Vivian Girls into a cohesive narrative?
 
 
jmw
20:08 / 17.02.05
So, with all the exciement over Darger's work, has anybody ever tried printing a collection, or assembled The Vivian Girls into a cohesive narrative?

That was my first thought - some basic, and not very extensive , reseach indicates, no. Extracts, drawings etc, but no "novel".
 
 
jmw
20:12 / 17.02.05
I think her argument is pretty confused, TBH.

In answer to your request for thoughts. Surely what we're talking about here is finding a community/audience? That being the case, I don't see the Internet as any more threatening to the creative process than joining an artists' retreat, getting a social life etc...

Maybe you're right. Her argument is persuasive, but it could be entirely wrong.

However, I do suspect that such people could be easily sidetracked by the fringe socialising possibilities on the net.

I'm not saying it's threatening to the creative process – I'm suggesting that it could potentially remove the desire to create at all in those not focussed on a specific goal.

J...
 
 
HCE
15:35 / 18.02.05
"However, I do suspect that such people could be easily sidetracked by the fringe socialising possibilities on the net.

I'm not saying it's threatening to the creative process – I'm suggesting that it could potentially remove the desire to create at all in those not focussed on a specific goal."

Ugh. This hits too close to home.
 
 
Spaniel
18:02 / 21.02.05
I'm not saying it's threatening to the creative process – I'm suggesting that it could potentially remove the desire to create at all in those not focussed on a specific goal.

Sorry if I was unclear, but this was, and is, understood.

To reiterate, I'm not sure that communities *of all kinds* don't present similar dangers.
 
 
jmw
17:37 / 02.03.05
Ugh. This hits too close to home.

Unintentional.


Besides, it needn't be the case. As you'll note from my posting dates, work interferes (severely) with my fringe socialising activities...
 
  
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