Art

James Castle: A Retrospective

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Self-taught, working-outside-the-mainstream artists are an often-misunderstood phenomenon, if one considers the myriad terms that emphasize their otherness: "outsider," "visionary," "naïve," "folk," or, in Europe, "art brut." But one thing that self-taught artists are infrequently called is "the subject of a major museum retrospective." The work of James Castle, who was born deaf and worked in seclusion in rural Idaho, is an exhilarating justification of work made beyond the academy. The exhibition is comprised of more than 200 drawings, books, collages, and sculptural objects that explore the artist's pastoral landscape, many of which feature found objects and unique approaches to material like homemade ink made of soot and saliva.

– Audrey Mast

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