Yiddish Book Center hosts 'outsider art' exhibit
MERCED SUN-STAR
By Steve Pfarrer
MASSACHUSETTS---The French call it "art brut," which translates as "raw art" or "rough art." The English equivalent is "outsider art" — artwork that's made outside the conventions of the academy, often by people with little or no formal training. Nathan Hilu certainly meets the latter definition. Selected parts of that work are now on display through September at the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst in "Nathan Hilu's Journals: Word, Image, Memory." It's a wild kaleidoscope that merges memory, history, biblical stories and perhaps the artist's own fantasies. Synagogues, famous religious figures, Nazi prisoners of war (Hilu once was a guard at the Nuremberg Trials), Lower East Side delis — they all have their place in Hilu's universe. [link]
By Steve Pfarrer
MASSACHUSETTS---The French call it "art brut," which translates as "raw art" or "rough art." The English equivalent is "outsider art" — artwork that's made outside the conventions of the academy, often by people with little or no formal training. Nathan Hilu certainly meets the latter definition. Selected parts of that work are now on display through September at the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst in "Nathan Hilu's Journals: Word, Image, Memory." It's a wild kaleidoscope that merges memory, history, biblical stories and perhaps the artist's own fantasies. Synagogues, famous religious figures, Nazi prisoners of war (Hilu once was a guard at the Nuremberg Trials), Lower East Side delis — they all have their place in Hilu's universe. [link]