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The Accidental Artist
But most fascinating, perhaps, especially given Castle’s specific handicaps, are his text-based works and affinity for mass culture. Though illiterate, Castle was drawn to the look and shapes of typography. He could mimic printed text with alarming accuracy and dissociate the shapes and lines from their inherent meanings. “B”s went with “Q”s and “?”s, “M”s with “P”s; uppercase letters weren’t just for proper nouns and starting sentences; and words like “short ribs,” “sold,” and “learn” became poetic when rendered and presented out of context and on their own.
His exposure to text and life outside of rural Idaho came largely from his parents’ side business: they ran a post office out of their home. There, the artist devoured unclaimed magazines, letters, books, and brochures. He cut-and-pasted them into collages. He illustrated scenes starring men in suits and cocktail waitresses to create what look like comic books or storyboards for movies. He also sketched logos and now iconic product designs (the Morton Salt Girl canister, for one).
Castle’s cardboard sculptures conjure Robert Rauschenberg’s combines; his figures border on the surreal; his collages and storyboard-like illustrations use the same visual language as Pop; and his text-based pieces seem dutifully Dada. But these connections have less to do with Castle than they do with the artistic movements themselves. Castle had no known knowledge of art history or Modernism. Warhol and Lichtenstein riffed on product logos and comic books because it was ironic. Castle did so because they were in his yard. Surrealists advocated looking inward to find that raw art of the subconscious. Castle did that naturally. These are fascinating (albeit accidental) parallels that demonstrate the vast reach of consumer culture as well as efforts by certain 20th-century artists to tease out those instinctive skills with which Castle was born.
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Rachel Wolff is a New York-based writer and editor who has covered art for New York, ARTnews, and Manhattan.
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rosenblatt
Well, a great story about a remarkable artist, an outsider artist. What else to say? I consider myself an outsider artist, if one has to have a niche market and label to go with it. I guess in the real world you do.
afterthought
I've seen your art and it is juvenile, pedantic and uninspiring. In the real world, you should be working in an office, but you are too lazy.
All of that was a lie.
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PetiteNanan
Excuse me "afterthought" ( above) but the vicious attack you launched on " rosenblatt" ( who I assume might be Richard Rosenblatt) seems more than slightly uncalled for! Do you try to eviscerate "rosenblatt" and then recant-- or do you try, and then say that he is mendacious on top of it all?
You might take a little to hefting logic and style books to study and use in your writing, since you think you can write well enough to blog.
Poor Mr. Rosenblatt, who could be the grocer/sunday painter down the street, for all I know, was simply expressing benevolence-- and here you come in with a suspicious cudgel. "Afterthoughts" about a misspent life? Just a brooding desire to add to the general smudge of nastiness?
I took the trouble to look up the paintings of Richard Rosenblatt and he can't be too lazy as he went to the Art Students League where my mother studied and so did Lichtenstein.
His paintings are very pleasing... a little Hopper a little Frenchness and simple. They probably make a lot of people happy and his parents proud of him-- what do you want, everyone Edvard Munch?
PetiteNanan
Also , by the way, thank you Rachel Wolff-- for a very interesting and inspiring story of a unique triumph over adversity.
Thank you.
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