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Self-taught in the South End
Berenberg goes to the heart of art
BY RANDI HOPKINS

The sun shines warmly into the Berenberg Gallery’s Clarendon Street storefront, even on a cold day late in February, casting light on the colorful sculptures of animals and other figures that occupy pedestals in the middle of the space. Downstairs, gallery owner Lorri Berenberg is moving big paintings around while thinking about her next exhibition, which will open on March 11 with large-scale paintings on wood panels by unschooled artist Freddie Brice. Berenberg, who’s warm and colorful herself in a gem-toned magenta scarf, is making her name as the Boston source for a variety of contemporary art created by geographically isolated or mentally or physically challenged individuals whose work speaks with a directness and a passion unmediated by larger art-world trends or theories.

"I don’t personally use the term ‘outsider art’ in connection with the gallery," says Berenberg, who opened her gallery in October 1999 in this two-level space she shares with A Street Frames, her husband Rob’s well-established framing business. "I would rather describe what I show as contemporary folk art, or work by self-taught artists. The phrase ‘outsider art’ is a convenient umbrella term, but some people feel that it marginalizes the work. I would rather just drop all the labels altogether."

Whatever you call it, this kind of work is finding an enthusiastic audience these days, and it’s engaged in a healthy dialogue with the sometimes solipsistic world of contemporary art through such exhibitions as the current "Quilts of Gee’s Bend" at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York (featuring quilts made by more than 40 African-American women from this small rural community in Alabama) and shows of work by outsider art’s poster boy, Henry Darger, at the American Folk Art Museum in New York and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, not to mention a resurgence in the popularity of Grandma Moses.

Berenberg, who spent more than 20 years in the education department at the MFA before leaving to open her own gallery, now combs the country to find unusual artists. She’s excited about her new show of Freddie Brice’s work both because of the artist’s dynamic and original use of color and because of what she describes as his mix of country roots and urban experiences. "Freddie was born in 1920 in Charleston, South Carolina, and was raised there by his mother until her death, when he was nine years old, at which point he moved to Harlem in New York City with an aunt and uncle. You can see the Southern influence in his imagery — for example, the way he paints snakes, reflecting the African-American vernacular of the South — as well as his urban experiences. He had a job painting ships in Brooklyn, so he loves to work very large, and he likes to paint things he knows, like ships and clocks and interiors."

This idiosyncratic artist, who suffers from schizophrenia and has spent much of his adult life in and out of institutions, habitually works on his pieces while seated; Berenberg plans to have a videotape of him at work to show interested visitors while the exhibit is up. In the world of untaught artists, personal biography, or what she calls "the artist’s back story," features more prominently than in mainstream contemporary art, which is why she always has her artists’ biographies up on the walls, so viewers can read some of the details of their lives in places like Fayetteville, Alabama. And the sophisticated gallerist is clearly in her element as she swings her arms to demonstrate how Brice, who loves music, sometimes uses the wood panels he paints on as a kind of drum as he works. In her own way, Berenberg is bringin’ it all back home.

"Freddie Brice" will be on view at the Berenberg Gallery, 4 Clarendon Street, from March 11 through April 26. For information call (617) 536-0800.

Issue Date: February 27 - March 6, 2003

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