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Henry Darger henry darger Edited and with an introduction by Contributions by brooke davis anderson, michael bonesteel and carl watson with henry darger’s The History of My Life Prestel munich london new york in cooperation with the american folk art museum, new york Cover: Henry Darger, 6 Episode 3 Place not mentioned. Escape during violent storm . (detail—see pages 188–89) Endpapers: Map of Angelinia. Agathia Battlefi eld. Watercolor and pencil on pieced paper, 24 x 69 ½ in. Collection Kiyoko Lerner pages 2–3: the seven Vivian Princesses: Daisy; Angeline; G[ertrude]; Catherine, Jennie; V[iolet]; Joice. Watercolor, pencil, and carbon tracing on paper, each 12 x 8 in. Collection Andrew Edlin Gallery, New York Frontispiece: At Jennie Richee. After being shown how to escape . (detail—see pages 204–5) pages 6–7: Part two. Break out of concentration camp . (detail—see pages 106–7) pages 8–9: At Jennie Richee. Blengiglomenean creature . rescues child . (detail—see pages 194–95) pages 10–11: They are chased again however and have to give up for want of breath. Watercolor, pencil, and carbon tracing on pieced paper, 19 x 34 ½ in. Collection Andrew Edlin Gallery, New York 2nd edition 2014 © 2009, Prestel Verlag, Munich · London · New York for the text “American Innocence,” © 2009, Klaus Biesenbach · for the text “An Artist’s Studio at 851 Webster Avenue,” © 2009, Brooke Davis Anderson · for the excerpt from Girls on the Run by John Ashbery, © 1999, John Ashbery; reprinted by permission of Georges Borchardt, Inc., and Carcanet Press Ltd. on behalf of the author for illustrations of works by Henry Darger, © Kiyoko Lerner Published by Prestel, a member of Verlagsgruppe Random House GmbH prestel verlag Neumarkter Strasse 28, 81673 Munich Tel. +49 (0)89 4136-0 · Fax +49 (0)89 4136-2335 prestel publishing ltd. 14 - 17 Wells Street, London W1T 3PD Tel. +44 (020) 7323-5004 · Fax +44 (020) 7323-0271 prestel publishing 900 Broadway, Suite 603, New York, NY 10003 Tel. +1 (212) 995-2720 · Fax +1 (212) 995-2733 www.prestel.com Library of Congress Control Number: 2009928138 Editorial direction: Christopher Lyon Design: Mark Melnick · Origination: Reproline Mediateam Production: Amanda Freymann, Nele Krüger and Friederike Schirge Editorial assistance: Ryan Newbanks · Editor: Eve Sinaiko Research assistant to Klaus Biesenbach: Alexander Kauff man Printed and bound by C & C Printing, China Verlagsgruppe Random House FSC® N001967. The FSC®-certifi ed paper Chinese Golden Sun has been supplied by Yanzhou Paper Industry Co., Ltd. ISBN 978-3-7913-4919-0 For their advice and kind assistance in helping to realize this book, the publisher wishes to thank Kiyoko Lerner, Andrew Edlin and the staff of the Edlin Gallery, New York, and the American Folk Art Museum, New York. girls on the run after Henry Darger A great plane fl ew across the sun, and the girls ran along the ground. The sun shone on Mr. McPlaster’s face, it was green like an elephant’s. Let’s get out of here, Judy said. They’re getting closer, I can’t stand it. But you know, our fashions are in fashion only briefl y, then they go out and stay that way for a long time. Then they come back in for a while. Then, in maybe a million years, they go out of fashion and stay there. Laure and Tidbit agreed, with the proviso that after that everyone would become fashion again for a few hours. Write it now, Tidbit said, before they get back. And, quivering, I took the pen. Drink the beautiful tea before you slop sewage over the horizon, the Principal directed. OK, it’s calm now, but it wasn’t two minutes ago. What do you want me to do, said Henry, I am no longer your serf, and if I was I wouldn’t do your bidding. That is enough, sir. You think you can lord it over every last dish of oatmeal on this planet, Henry said. But wait till my ambition comes a cropper, whatever that means, or bursts into feathered bloom and burns on the shore. Then the kiddies dancing sidewise declared it a treat, and the ice-cream gnomes slurped their last that day. —John Ashbery, excerpt from Girls on the Run (1999) contents Excerpt from Girls on the Run • John Ashbery . 7 Introduction: American Innocence • Klaus Biesenbach . 11 the art of henry darger Sources and Drawings: A Portfolio . 45 An Artist’s Studio at 851 Webster Avenue • Brooke Davis Anderson . 87 Plates . 100-268 the life of henry darger Henry Darger’s Great Crusade, Crisis of Faith, and Last Judgment • Michael Bonesteel . 271 The Metaphysics of Wreckage: Introduction to the Autobiography of Henry Darger • Carl Watson . 277 The History of My Life • Henry Darger . 281 Exhibitions, Selected Bibliography, and Public Collections . 315 Photograph Credits . 318 • Acknowledgments . 319 introduction American Innocence klaus biesenbach 1: points of departure as Darger was outside of the typical social class that artists very often come from, as much as he was outside of the In her video We Are All Made of Stars (2002), Laurel Naka- educational trajectories that artists normally go through, date puts herself in the hands of truck drivers: waiting as much as he was outside of a family structure or con- at a truck stop, scantily clad, she follows them into their ventional value system, he nevertheless created a body cabs, protected only by her innocence and a small video of work that resonates with what we now see as primary camera recording the situation. themes and concerns of artists in recent decades. I fi rst experienced Nakadate’s work in 2004 when, as One must look at common motifs in Darger’s work, one of a team of curators from P.S. 1 Contemporary Art such as those derived from his beloved Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Center in New York City and the Museum of Modern Art, Heidi, and the Oz books by L. Frank Baum. One must also I was researching the second Greater New York exhibi- consider Darger’s obsessiveness and compulsions, from tion, held at P.S. 1 in 2005. To prepare for this overview of his interminable, numbingly detailed battle descriptions emerging talent in the fi ve boroughs, we visited hundreds and casualty lists for the civil war that is the subject of his of young artists’ studios in the greater New York area. It vast unfi nished novel, In the Realms of the Unreal, to the was extraordinary to note how many of them were aware hundreds of pages of weather reports he compiled late in of Henry Darger’s work, as Nakadate was, talked about his life. Darger, pinned up images of his work, or even directly re- An overview of recent art production inspired by ferred to him in their own artworks. Henry Darger’s work or refl ecting his imagery will shed Henry Darger continues to be regarded as an “out- light on his continuing impact. Why is Darger so relevant sider” artist. I am not going to attempt to prove that he today? Perhaps it is because his focus on war and vio- was not, but instead describe Darger in his motivations lence, belief and despair, and the heaven and hell of hu- and his inspirations, explain when and how he worked, man interaction seem all too contemporary and speak to and point to other artists who lived and worked through the deepest anxieties of our media-driven society. the same decades and had the same points of departure or used similar source material. Which artists arrived at Obsessed with ideas of vulnerability and protection, con- similar results? Or contrary ones? trol, power, and freedom, Henry Darger thought about There are parallels between Darger and his better- adoption and slavery. In the Realms of the Unreal is the his- known, more widely accepted contemporaries. As much tory of an epic war fought between an alliance of four great 11 Catholic nations, led by Abbieannia, and an evil empire, success. Darger’s interest in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle ally tells us something about his working method. For ex- Glandelinia, that practices child slavery. The heroines of Tom’s Cabin and his extensive knowledge about the Amer- ample, one of the protagonists, a boy named Schoefi eld the novel are the seven innocent, prepubescent Vivian sis- ican Civil War demonstrate his awareness of the history Penrod, is inspired by Booth Tarkington’s Penrod nov- ters, daughters of the emperor of Abbieannia, who help to of slavery in the United States and its circumstances. In els, which follow the boy-hero Penrod Schofi eld, grow- free kidnapped children enslaved in Glandelinia, a nation Realms, one sect of Glandelinians, known as the Hooded ing up in the Midwest before World War I. When we fi rst of corrupt, evil adults. Gargolian Kurds, is explicitly compared to the Ku Klux meet Schoefi eld in Realms, he is introduced as a French- When Darger, born in 1892, was still a baby, his mother Klan.³ Borrowing from Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Darger intro- Canadian: the Glandelinians call him the “black haired died in childbirth. Arriving in the absence of his mother, duces as a character Stowe’s own Evangeline St. Clare, the little Frenchie Imp, Schoefi eld Penrod.” Later in the story Darger’s new baby sister did not trigger normal feelings angelic little girl who befriends Tom. Appearing unex- it is explained that he is “not a Canadian as many thought of sibling jealousy. There was no mother to fawn over pectedly in Darger’s novel, she explains that she has just he was,” but a native of Abbieannia.⁶ Another of Darger’s the new infant.
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