Folk Art Fiend!

Outsider, Accidental, Psychotic, Psychedelic, Crafty, Quirky, Failed, Fantastical and the outright Oddball - These are the Folk Art Finds of Swedish artist Jonas Liveröd

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Paper kite made in Mexico in the 1970s. 

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Facial freak-outs: Made by Japanese artist Kobayashi Kiyochika in 1883, this woodblock print is part of a series of 100 facial types. These four include the expressions of: His kite has blown away, The writer talks to himself, angry Fisherman and - of course - Eagle eyes.

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Cut-up memorials: Silhouette paper cuts from 19th century Sweden, described as images of some recently deceased people of the city of Uddevalla. From the collections of Bohusläns Museum.

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Wood devotion: Kizhi Pogost is a collection of churches built entirely of wood on the island of Kizhi on lake Onega in the remote Karelia republic in Russia.  Among the more overwhelming constructions is the the 22-dome Transfiguration Church and the 9-dome Intercession Church, but several other chapels and churches are spread across the island. 

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Magic markings: The enigmatic Hex signs on the barns of Dutch and German descendants in Pennsylvania originates in equal parts as protection against evil and ornamental folk art. 

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Visionary painting part 2: Friedrich Schröder-Sonnensterns psychotic-erotic-mock-magic 1955 painting The diplomatic couple.

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Drawings by American Ted Gordon, born in Kentucky in 1924. From the collection of La Fabuloserie in France. 

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Hidden in a worn order book from a Nazi psychiatric clinic, the drawings made by Wilhelm Werner (1898-1940) of the experiments and compulsory sterilization he was exposed to at the clinic in the 1930s, is the only known documentation by victims themselves of the nazi sterilizing programme. Werner deals with this which he calls Sterelation and depicts himself as a passive clown doll, attached to machines, whose genitals are being manipulated by nurses (with swastika armbands) and a doctor.  One drawing shows patients with jelly bag caps sitting happily in a coach that is adorned with a swastika and a banner reading Sterelation. On the roof of the bus, which resembles the kind of propaganda vehicles widely used in Nazi-Germany, there sits a nurse presenting two testicles on a plate. In 1940 he was murdered by the Nazis in an extermination camp.

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Sniffin’ Glue: Possibly the greatest magazine title of them all, and with a damn great (non)-design, Sniffin Glue was one of the more influential punk fanzines around and had an intense but short life between 1976-77.

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Magician Mechanical Bank from 1901: Designed by virtuoso bank inventor Charles A. Bailey, the Magician Bank is based on the timeless vanishing rabbit trick.  When one places a coin under the magician’s top hat and presses the lever, the hat covers the coin, and the coin “magically disappears,” sliding down a cleverly designed (and hard to detect) chute. Upon the lever’s release, the magician raises his hat, revealing an empty table.

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The stuff of real nightmares: An antique, handmade German Halloween lantern in the form of a nastily laughing foot-face and its grinning toe comrades. From the collection of Connie and Jay Lowe, Pennsylvania. 

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Further frivolous saturdayism:  Joan Mirós costume for a staging of the Ubu Roi, a play by Alfred Jarry. It was first performed in Paris at the Théâtre de l'Œuvre, causing a riotous response in the audience as it opened and closed on December 10, 1896. It is a wild, bizarre and comic play, overturning cultural rules, norms, and conventions.  It was a precursor to Dada, Surrealism and the Theatre of the Absurd.

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All eyes on us: Sumerian sculptures found at the Square Temple of Tel Asmar (present day Iraq). Why they have these wide-eyed, dilated pupils is debated but the act of seeing was often associated with observing marvellous things and attentiveness, and the eyes allow the statue to observe the divinity in the temple.

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Wether you find them seductive or scary, it is hard to deny the sculptural qualities of scarecrows. Here a small selection of homemade humanoids for the fields. Included are scarecrows from Switzerland, Belgium, Vietnam and Spain.

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Devotional collecting:The Hill of Crosses is a site of pilgrimage near Šiauliai, in northern Lithuania. Over the generations, not only crosses, but giant crucifixes, carvings of Lithuanian patriots, statues of the Virgin Mary and thousands of tiny effigies and rosaries have been brought here by Catholic pilgrims. The exact number of crosses is unknown, but estimates put it at about 100,000 in 2006.

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Dumpling dynasty: Miniature model (35 cm wide) of a Ming Dynasty altar (1368-1644) complete with offerings of food and incense and possibly vases to hold flowers. Judging from what looks to be sugar cane on the left-hand side of the table, this is perhaps a Hokkien altar. Sugar cane is always included in the altar offerings in remembrance of how the “king of the heavens” answered the prayers of the Hokkien people and protected them from their persecutors by hiding them in a field of sugar cane. Other foods include what look like a calf’s head and a whole carp, cakes, and dumplings. 

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The last flower from my mothers hat: Den siste blomst fra min mors hatt - 1980. Found in worn Danish bible with homemade leather binding.