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Trenton Doyle Hancock
And the Branches Became as Storm Clouds
2003
Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth

THE INSIDER’S OUTSIDER
by Ben Davis

Apr. 28, 2008
"Dargerism: Contemporary Artists and Henry Darger, " Apr. 15-Sept. 21, 2008, at the American Folk Art Museum, 45 West 53rd Street, New York, N.Y. 10019

What’s so fascinating about Henry Darger? More than anything else, this is the question that circles beneath the surface of "Henry Darger and Contemporary Art " at the American Folk Art Museum, which devotes four floors of exhibition space to a selection of 11 watercolors by the celebrated "outsider " artist along with works by a dozen other figures whose esthetic draws on his work.
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Ben Davis Archives for 2008

Apr. 11, 2008	ART IN FLUX by Ben Davis Flux Factory’s final show marks the end of an era.

Mar. 13, 2008	CAI GUO-KILLER by Ben Davis In the basement with Chinese art star Cai Guo-Qiang.

Mar. 7, 2008	RAVE ON by Ben Davis A "rave review" for the Whitney’s 2008 biennial.

Feb. 15, 2008	THE BLING GAME by Ben Davis Say hello to Luis Gispert’s little friend.

Jan. 24, 2008	GATEWAY TO NOWHERE by Ben Davis Do-Ho Suh’s Reflection and art’s power to forget.

Jan. 11, 2008	COMMERCE AND CONSCIOUSNESS by Ben Davis The year in "complicit esthetics."

Ben Davis Archives for 2007

Dec. 24, 2007	MIAMI POST MORTEM by Ben Davis The "social unconscious" in Art Basel Miami Beach and beyond.

Dec. 4, 2007	WESTERN PROMISES by Ben Davis Piotr Uklanski’s ""Western"" Summer Love.

Nov. 19, 2007	DISASTER TEAM by Ben Davis The beauty of drowning Africans in Isaac Julien and Russell Maliphant’s "Cast No Shadow."

Nov. 12, 2007	GUY SMILEY by Ben Davis Yue Minjun, human logo.

Oct. 26, 2007	THE CONTRA IRAN AFFAIR by Ben Davis Shirana Shahbazi’s new work reacts against images of Iran, in a veiled way.

Oct. 11, 2007	ALL THIS USELESS BOOTY by Ben Davis Julie Heffernan’s anti-history painting.

Sept. 27, 2007	MAN AND SUPERMAN by Ben Davis Shaun El C. Leonardo, budding superartist.

Aug. 24, 2007	ART CLASS by Ben Davis Marx, "a new theory of the market," art and politics.

Aug. 1, 2007	FAIR FLIP-FLOPS by Ben Davis Commerce and/or personality at the third Scope Hamptons.

July 20, 2007	GLOBALIZED FEMINISM by Ben Davis Can Miwa Yanagi dismantle the master’s house with the master’s tools?

July 17, 2007	REPLY TO STORR by Ben Davis The Venice Biennale, Africa and the "borrowed kettle."

June 13, 2007	POWER PLAY by Ben Davis Tom Friedman’s aluminum foil sculptures are portraits of Aby Rosen as a "fun" guy.

May 16, 2007	HOLLOW LAUGHER by Ben Davis David Godbold answers the question: Why isn’t postmodern art funnier?

May 11, 2007	PINAULT AND CO. by Ben Davis A glorious romance with power in "Sequence 1" at the Palazzo Grassi in Venice.

Apr. 17, 2007	IRANIAN EVOLUTION by Ben Davis A secret politics in Abbas Kiarostami’s photos and videos.

Mar. 12, 2007	WHITE WALLS, GLASS CEILING by Ben Davis Why are there so many great women artists -- who can’t get a show?

Feb. 26, 2007	LA LA LAND by Ben Davis L.A. Art challenges New York on its own turf.

Feb. 23, 2007	ARTNET NEWS Questions surround the patron behind the Venice Biennale’s African exhibition.

Feb. 14, 2007	NET WORTH by Ben Davis The dilemmas of science-as-art in curator Marisa Olson’s "Networked Nature."

Jan. 4, 2006	STEINBERG’S SIGNATURES by Ben Davis Saul Steinberg takes on Adorno and Benjamin.

Ben Davis Archives for 2006

Dec. 18, 2006	MORE ON MIAMI by Ben Davis A report on the Ink, Flow, Bridge, Aqua, DiVA, Pulse, NADA, Photo Miami and Scope art fairs.

Dec. 7, 2006	BLACK SITE SPECIFIC by Ben Davis CIA torture in Chelsea.

Nov. 8, 2006	A MODEST PROPOSAL FOR THE ART WORLD by Ben Davis The solution to everything.

Nov. 8, 2006	MINNESOTA VICE by Ben Davis Angela Strassheim’s tortured photos of suburbia.

Oct. 25, 2006	CULTURAL KARAOKE by Ben Davis Nikki S. Lee’s "conceptual documentary" A.K.A. Nikki S. Lee.

Oct. 13, 2006	CRAZY QUILTS by Ben Davis Ai Kijima’s fabric collages bring Pop extravagance to a traditional form.

Sept. 20, 2006	DREAM FACTORY by Ben Davis Art and ads from director Michel Gondry.

Aug. 30, 2006	GLASS HOUSES by Ben Davis The art world lessons of Toledo, Ohio.

Aug. 18, 2006	RANCIÈRE, FOR DUMMIES by Ben Davis The Politics of Aesthetics by Jacques Rancière.

Aug. 3, 2006	DOWN TEMPO by Ben Davis The hidden history of the Bauhaus in Marianne Brandt’s photomontages.

July 20, 2006	SCOPE HAMPERED? by Ben Davis The second go-round for the Scope franchise in the Hamptons.

June 15, 2006	REFLECTED GLORY by Ben Davis The tortured journey of James Lee Byars fills six galleries in New York.

June 7, 2006	MOMENT IN THE SUN by Ben Davis Circa ’06 in San Juan, the first commercial art fair in the Caribbean.

May 31, 2006	RETRO ACTIVITIES by Ben Davis Marco Boggio Sella, Vadis Turner and Michael Bell-Smith take on the past.

May 4, 2006	INANE ASYLUM by Ben Davis Wooloo Productions offers up an immigrant "Survivor" as art in "AsylumNYC."

Apr. 21, 2006	THIRTEEN UNEASY PIECES by Ben Davis Chinese video art at P.S.1’s "The Thirteen: Chinese Video Now."

Apr. 11, 2006	THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF BARNEY by Ben Davis Drawing Restraint 9 is a hoot.

Mar. 20, 2006	TWILIGHT OF THE TEEN IDOLS by Ben Davis Masturbating jocks and cheerleaders, courtesy Brock Enright and Ivan Hürzeler.

Mar. 10, 2006	THE ARMORY BOWL by Ben Davis Reading the semiotics of the Armory Show 2006, Mar. 9-13, 2006.

Mar. 2, 2006	LABELING THE WHITNEY by Ben Davis The art of text at the Whitney Biennial 2006.

Feb. 24, 2006	LOOK AGAIN by Ben Davis Photography in New York -- the AIPAD photo show, Tracey Moffatt, Jacques-Henri Lartigue, Christopher Williams and Florian Maier-Aichen.

Feb. 10, 2006	RETURN FIRE by Ben Davis New images of art from Iraq in New York.

Jan. 25, 2006	WHITNEY WATCH by Ben Davis Whitney Biennial curators past and present talk around the 2006 installment.

Jan. 24, 2006	TECHNICAL KNOCK-OUTS by Ben Davis Dorkbot, "Breaking and Entering" at PaceWildenstein, "Superlowrez" at vertexList, "Dewanatron" at Pierogi.

Ben Davis Archives for 2005

Dec. 16, 2005	Pop Life by Ben Davis 0100101110101101.ORG proves Europe kicks butt.

Nov. 23, 2005	Raging within the Machine by Ben Davis Gelitin's "Tantamounter" -- a good time is had by all.

Nov. 16, 2005	I Want My Mike Kelley by Ben Davis Mike Kelley at Gagosian Gallery.

Nov. 2, 2005	We Are Duchampians by Ben Davis "The Imagery of Chess Revisited" at the Noguchi Museum.

Oct. 12, 2005	Photo New York by Ben Davis A report from the 2nd annual photo fair in Manhattan.

Sept. 27, 2005	Knock Out by Ben Davis The Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s "A Knock at the Door"

Sept. 12, 2005	The Baby-Satyr’s Club by Ben Davis Ohad Meromi at Harris Lieberman.

Aug. 26, 2005	August Company by Ben Davis The end of the summer at three shows in Williamsburg.

Aug. 17, 2005	Signs of the Times by Ben Davis Steve Powers and the Dreamland Artist Club at Coney Island.

Aug. 3, 2005	Ultra-Violette by Ben Davis Banks Violette rocks the Whitney.

July 19, 2005	Un-Hampered by Ben Davis The Scope Hamptons contemporary art fair in Southampton.

July 12, 2005	Letter Love by Ben Davis O.K. Harris documents the career of Don Celender.

June 21, 2005	Visible Flaws by Ben Davis Art theorist W.J.T. Mitchell's What Do Pictures Want?

June 7, 2005	A FUTURE PRESENT by Ben Davis D. Dominick Lombardi puts his mark on the apocalypse.

May 23, 2005	THE WILDER BUNCH by Ben Davis The artists associated with legendary L.A. dealer Nicholas Wilder.