Martín Ramírez In Rain Taxi

It’s a low, slow, pre-holiday. I was feeling uninspired until Liz came home and threw the summer print edition of Rain Taxi on the living room table. I quickly ran my eyes down the list of authors and found a review of Brooke Davis Anderson’s book, MARTÍN RAMÍREZ.

Anderson is curator of “Martín Ramírez,” a retrospective that features 97 of the artist’s works on paper. I’m constantly running into reviews of the show, starting with a Sunday Morning a few months ago. I tend to pay attention if something keeps bopping me in the face.

Born in Jalisco, Mexico, Ramírez (1885-1960) was a self-taught artist, who after a series of hardships, spent the latter half of his life in California mental institutions. Rain Taxi reviewer, Eliza Murphy, gives high praise to Anderson’s book:

Curator Brooke Davis Anderson has not only orchestrated a phenomenal retrospective of Ramírez’s impressive output, but here gathers scholarly essays that offer a range of perspectives on the artist, inviting “critics, curators, collectors, dealers, and writers to move beyond the ‘sound bites’ of the past fifty years to a more holistic understanding of his work.”

The Ramírez retrospective continues to tour, and recently moved from an extended stay at the American Folk Art Museum in New York City, to the San Jose Museum of Art. The only Midwest date begins October 6th, at the Milwaukee Art Museum.

All this is driving me to think about a short trip east when the leaves turn. Like Minnesota, Wisconsin is beautiful in the Fall. Liz says it’s 5 hours, 34 minutes, and 345 miles, a long drive for a weekend stay.

But I’ve never seen the Milwaukee Art Museum’s white concrete Quadracci Pavilion designed by Spanish architect, Santiago Calatrava. The building alone looks like a work of art.

Two for the price of one; maybe it would be worth the drive.

 

-related to post, Joan Didion & Martín Ramírez

 

MORE INFORMATION & RESOURCES:

 
American Folk Art Museum, MARTÍN RAMÍREZ

MARTÍN RAMÍREZ
By Brooke Davis Anderson, with essays by Víctor M. Espinosa and Kristin E. Espinosa, Daniel Baumann, and Victor Zamudio-Taylor, a foreword by Maria Ann Conelli, and an introduction by Robert Storr.

• Published by Marquand Books in association with the American Folk Art Museum, 2007 (192 pages, 137 full-color illustrations, hardcover, $55).
• Available exclusively at the American Folk Art Museum Book and Gift Shop or through the publisher, Marquand Books.

MARTÍN RAMÍREZ Travel Schedule:

• Mexican Heritage Plaza/San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose, California
  June 9–September 9, 2007
• Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
  October 6, 2007–January 6, 2008

Outside In, Art Review | Martín Ramírez by Roberta Smith, New York Times, Art & Design, Jan 26th, 2007

Art Brut , Phyllis Kind Gallery, Self-Taught Art

Martín Ramírez at Marquand Books: “Martín Ramírez … is my favorite outsider artist. Come to that, he’s one of my favorite artists, period.”  Article by Peter Schjeldahl, The New Yorker.

Silent Artist Has Voice After Death: Confined To A Mental Ward, Martín Ramírez Refused To Talk, But Spoke Through His Art by Caitlin A. Johnson, CBS Sunday Morning, March 25, 2007

 

-posted on red Ravine, Tuesday, July 3rd, 2007

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Joan Didion & Martin Ramirez

Sunday Morning really rocked today. The least of it was that it ended with my beloved sandhill cranes roosting on the Platte River. Beautiful.

And Stevie Nicks is still rockin’ in middle age, after 30 plus years, with no sign of stopping. She said she’s not the least bit interested in telling a partner when she’s leaving and when she’ll be home. She chose art over relationships. Liz and I saw her a few years ago at the Target Center in Minneapolis. She is a performer like no other.

 But what I want to mention is that Vanessa Redgrave is opening Broadway this week with a one woman play on Joan Didion’s work, The Year of Magical Thinking. They interviewed both Joan and Vanessa. Compelling material. Redgrave is up there on stage by herself for an hour and a half.

“I’m not alone,” she said. “Hopefully, the audience will be filling these seats, right up there with me.”

Didion showed up at every rehearsal to watch Redgrave. The best quote from her about writing Year of Magical Thinking: “I had to write it down. I can’t think unless it’s in terms of writing.” The play includes the death of her daughter as well as her husband. It is hard to imagine her grief. Impossible.

 My favorite segment was on Martín Ramírez, an artist who was confined to a psychiatric hospital in the 1930’s after being diagnosed as a catatonic schizophrenic. It is a sad story. He hardly said a word in 30 years but found room under tables, wherever he could, and drew his heart out. Painter, Wayne Thiebaud, was allowed to visit Ramirez and talked about his work which is hanging in the American Folk Art Museum in New York City.

I wish I could see it in person. He drew with wooden matchsticks on whatever paper he could find. Some of his work used pages from books or candy wrappers. Some was on the roll paper that a doctor pulls out in the office and spreads across the stainless steel table for exams. His drawings were striking. Busting out of silence.

 There’s also buzz about The Secret being based on the Power of Positive Thinking work of Norman Vincent Peale, though he is not credited in the book. They made it sound like another James Frey.  

 If you get a chance to see this week’s Sunday Morning in an archive, take advantage of it. Otherwise, you can read about these items at the links provided. It’s one of my favorite shows on TV.

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