Exclusive Preview: Caleb Neelon Installation, Exhibition, and Lecture
This article was posted by Daniel Feral 1 year, 2 months, 2 weeks, 3 days, 17 hours, 34 minutes ago.
This is an installation made up of 250+ signs that Caleb did with 125 kids called Signs and Symbols, Boston Museum of Fine Arts, 2010. Photo by Damon Beale.
Mother Buddha of Infinite Involvement, deCordova Museum, Lincoln, MA 2011. This installation consists of wood "sewn" into a dress. The wood circles are buttons with words and imagery on them, "signs" in the other definition of the word.
Metal signs Caleb installed in Chalon, France, 2002, and wood ones he installed in Massachusetts in the late nineties.
A sign installation in Caleb's garden from 2000, which could be considered "outsider art" in style and execution.
This kind of personal installation is reminiscent of the outsider artists Howard Finster and Prophet Royal Robertson. They also covered their homes and yards with hand-made signage, sculptures and other repurposed detritus to create very personal landscapes answering to an idiosyncratic internal vision. Their desire to communicate a message, much like that of graffiti writers and street artists, finds its outlet in the public canvases that are their houses and their private property. Although they don’t risk being arrested by breaking any laws governing public property, they do risk breaking societal laws and being branded as anti-social outcasts in other ways.
Other examples of similar installations are the Watts Towers in Los Angeles and the Toy Tower which was in a community garden on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Although these towers do not include a profusion of signage, all four fall into a category of outsider art that is public but very personal and on private property, hand-crafted and self-made, and do not utilize refined, trained or commercial styles. If you visit the link to the Toy Tower and you scroll down, you’ll see a pair of wooden converse by Skewville dangling from the tower. Arguably, Skewville could be classified as outsider art, at least in style. Definitely there is an affinity between Caleb Neelon’s work and Skewville’s in their choice of wood as a material, their raw unpolished styles, and their love of communication through the streets.
Text: Daniel Feral
Photo: Caleb Neelon
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© Daniel Feral & 12ozProphet - Sunday March 04, 2012 at 01:07 AM
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