HENRY DARGER
11 OCTOBER 2003–22 FEBRUARY 2004

HENRY DARGER (1892 - 1972)

All images in the exhibition are: watercolor, pencil, carbon tracing and sometimes collage on pieced paper. The text on the signs derive from the inscription on the work. Repeated spelling and grammar mistakes by the artist are not corrected. At times stop and comma has been added to make the text more readable. Untitled paintings have been assigned a title from the work's subject. The Swedish translation is a free interpretation since the meaning of the text at times is difficult to grasp.

When Henry Darger died in Chicago in 1972, a 15,000 page manuscript was found in his home. He had spent most of his life working on the text and illustrations for his epic, "The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What is Known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco- Angelinnian War Storm, Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion". Often shortened to "The Realms of the Unreal".

After writing his saga Henry Darger illustrated it. The drawings are as complex as the title. The story and the illustrations present a fantasy world with the innocence of a nursery tale and the cruelty of folkloristic tales such as those by the Brothers Grimm. Most of the characters are children. The good fight the evil in shape of seven young girls, the heroines of the story, who fight against the evil Glandelinians.

Brooke Anderson, director of Museum of American Folk Art, New York, which has a special Henry Darger Study Center, says: "This is just great art. You just kind of sit in awe of his intuitive talent, the powerful composition and the color. Then we have this wild make-believe world that he enters, that makes it even more fantastic. It's a classic tale. War, love, fighting, it's all present in there."

Darger used found clippings when he made his images. In his home he had a collection of thousands of ready made images from children's coloring books, advertising and comic books that he used as models for his illustrations. The figures were cut out and used or traced and then colored. To have them in different scale he had Xerox enlargements made. On the images text is usually added that describes the scene.

Both the content, the method and Darger's own fate attract attention. Parallels have been drawn between his work and his life. After his mother died, he grew up in orphanages and then lived a solitary life. Darger seems to have pursued his interests with a fascination bordering on the obsessive, which is reflected in his drawings. He was constantly following weather reports and for ten years he kept journals with notes on the weather. He followed war reports in the newspapers and was also interested in historical battles such as Americas Civil War. Darger had a catholic upbringing and seems to have had an ambiguous relationship to religion, but could nevertheless attend mass several times a day.

Darger's drawings have been exhibited with Goya's series of etchings, The Disasters of War, and the Chapman brothers' paraphrase of them. . In the spring, the two series were shown at the Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, the latter on loan from Magasin 3. He has inspired contemporary artists working within different genres most obviously his work has an important influence on contemporary artist within the visual arts today.

The exhibition was organized by P.S.1/MoMA, New York and Kunst-Werke, Berlin. The exhibition is realized from the collection of Mrs. Kiyoko Lerner Courtesy of Carl Hammer Gallery, Chicago, Illoniois, USA.

CONTENTS:
In conversation with Kiyoko Lerner by Klaus Biesenbach, curator KW Institute for Contemporary Art.
Thunderstorms and Atrocities: Writings of Henry Darger (Excerpts of "The Realms of the Unreal" and "The History of My Life")
Exhibition catalogue. ISBN 3-9804265-3-x
213 pages, color, illustrated. All texts in English.
Published 2003 by KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin.
OUT OF STOCK AT MAGASIN 3.
Available through D.A.P / Distributed Art Publishers www.artbook.com

The Realms of the Unreal by Henry Darger

(...) Nearly all day long their eyes were filled with tears. A month had already passed since they first saw the child labor horrors and knew the little girl called Jennie was a raving maniac, and never before had the Glandelinians witnessed such a crazy child. She was exceedingly dangerous, and always carried a dagger, seldom letting it fall down from her hands. She was stark naked and once in a while she would chew at her arms and shoulders. The worse she got, the crueller were the darts of sorrow that pierced the hearts of Violet and her sisters.

It was a surprise to Violet and her sisters when the Glandelinians came running into the room with the cruel king Procile cIosely pursued by Jennie, who came with leaps arid bounds, screeching like a demon and brandishing the horrible dagger, while foam fell from her lips. Violet and her sisters even ran for their lives as Jennie changed her coarse and came directly for them. Every now and then, she would stop to chew her arm or shoulder, which certainly did frighten Violet and her sisters. Violet had a sudden impulse to shoot Jennie but she cold not, as she wouldnÕt get time as it was too dangerous to face the maniac a single minute. Joice only prayed for her recovery, though it seemed utterly useless.

Nearer and nearer drew the demented child, then made a sudden spring at Angeline. But Angeline had been watching closely, and as Jennie made that spring she dashed to one side, so that Jennie landed on the back of a Glandelinian instead. After a furious attempt to throw her off, but as he tried to grab her by the throat, she glided out of his way. He could not hold a naked child, for naked ones are very slippery. Jennie with a scream now made at the Glandelinian with her dagger, but he eluded her spring and struck her such a blow that it laid her flat on the floor, but did not knock her senseless; it only increased her fury. (...)

Excerpt from the catalogue text "Thunderstorms and Atrocities: Writings of Henry Darger (Excerpts of "The Realms of the Unreal" and "The History of My Life")", page 205.

(None of the works have titles, below information are the captions written by Henry Darger on the illustrations)

Jennie Richee... with huge creatures. 61 x 95 cm

Are almost murdered themselves though they fight for their lives. Typhoon saves them. /At Norma Catherine via Jennie Richee. Vivian girls witness childrens bowels and other entrails torn out by infuriated Glandelinians. The result after the massacre. Only a few of the thousand of murdered children are shown here. / At Jennie Richee - via Norma Catherine. The children who are naked are made to suffer from the worst torture under fierce tropical heat imaginable. Vivian girl princesses are forced to witness frightful murder massacre of children - Vivian girls not shown in this composition. 55 x 227 cm

A withering fire is opened upon her but she escapes marvelously at Norma Catherine. Battle of Norma Catherine scene No.2 Jennie Vivian, one... Vivian girls defiantly waves flag in face of Glandelinians. The battle of Norma Catherine. Scene No.1./ (Notice: back view of tents) At Norma Catherine, they are recaptured. 55 x 226

At Jennie Richee, after killing and wounding guards rescue many other naked child prisoners, but who were not slaves. 56 x 208 cm

Untitled (Collage with troops) 43 x 82 cm

>After the battle: All because of child labor. This occurred when the frightful preternatural carnage at Angelinia Agathia was at its whitest fury 22.000.000 child toilers were freed since the day of carnage at Calverine. At this point the slaughter was terrific, notice all the dead and wounded and broken cannon and folliage and two smouldering fires. 48 x 70 cm

They are chased again... and have to give up for want of breath. 46 x 81 cm

Untitled (many girls tied to slabs of stone) 60 x 48 cm

Picture No. 2 of the same scene... 41 x 80 cm

At Calmanrinia, strangling and beating children to death./ At Cedernine, murdering naked little girls. 48 x 120 cm

Untitled (The Sacred Heart of Jesus)/At second battle of Marcocino, also escape from disastrous explosion during battle caused by Glandelinians. 48 x 123 cm

They try to get away with the enemys plans, and some valuable jewelry, belonging to themselves, after setting fire to thousands of tents, causing the wildest confusion are persued. 56 x 107 cm

At Jennie Richee, during full fury of storm enemy soldiers seize them at the cave mouth and they are strangled to senselessness. 48 x 240 cm

Untitled (Statues strangling children) 60 x 275 cm

Part two at Jennie Richee, to outwit the Glandelinian boy scouts one girl at extreme left of picture drops fire ants down his back. 60 x 275 cm

At Cedernine, Vivian girls... during battle, but refuse to leave the field.

At Anna Miria, one of the Vivian girls, Violet, takes up afternoon sentry duty and frustrate a number of Glandelinean sharp shooters by her own swift and good accuracy of shooting. 57 x 107 cm

At Jennie Richee, they had seized a Glandelinian officer who had been in swimming, and though he is half naked, they had forced him to sign a pass through the foe line, and tied him to a tree so he could not raise the alarm./The Glandelinians ÓwereÓ about to hang the brave little girls. See how they were ÓhangedÓ in next picture. /They attempt to hide in huge fiddle cases but are discovered because the doors were of glass.

At Jennie Richee, are arrested again with Éby reinforcing Glandelinians. 47 x 179 cm

At Jennie Richee, frustrate the enemy twice. 47 x 179 cm

At Jennie Richee, hear plots of general Manley, to kill their father Emperor Vivian. 43 x 162 cm

LECTURE ON HENRY DARGER
BY JOHN M. MACGREGOR

"The Mind of Henry Darger: On the Evolution of Blengins"
Reading by Amanda Ooms

Thursday November, 27, 7 pm.
Filmhuset, Cinema Mauritz, Borgvägen 1-5, Stockholm.
In English. Free entrance.

John M. MacGregor received his Ph.D. in Art History from Princeton University. He has studied at the School of Psychiatry of the Menninger Foundation; C. G. Jung Institute, Zurich; Tavistock Clinic, London; and with Anna Freud at the Hampstead Clinic, London. He has also undergone personal psychoanalysis with Vilma Popescu, Montreal; and training analysis with Peter Thomson, Toronto. A recognized authority in the field of psychiatric art, he is the author of the only extended study in this field, The Discovery of the Art of the Insane (Princeton University Press, 1989 as well as Dwight Mackintosh: The Boy Who Time Forgot, published by Creative Growth Art Center. Dr. MacGregor was the 1990 recipient of the Ernst Kris Prize of the American Society of the Psychopathology of Expression.