Join us for the opening of Self-Taught Genius: Treasures from the American Folk Art Museum. Co-curators Stacy Hollander and Valérie Rousseau will discuss self-taught art in the Stern Auditorium, Shotgun Jazz Band will provide live music, and our art educators will be manning the Art on the Spot activity table where you and your family can get creative.

• 5-8 pm: Art on the Spot
• 5:30-8:30 pm: Music by Shotgun Jazz Band
• 6:30 pm: Lectures with curators Stacy Hollander and Valérie Rousseau

About the Lectures

“Self-Taught Genius: Self-Taught is the Methodology, Genius is the Soul”

Stacy C. Hollander, Deputy Director for Curatorial Affairs, Chief Curator, and Director of Exhibitions, American Folk Art Museum

“The Oblique Angle: When the Self-Taught Artist Shapes the World”

Valérie Rousseau, Curator, Self-Taught Art and Art Brut, American Folk Art Museum

The exhibition Self-Taught Genius explores the the genesis and course of self-taught genius in the United States, its relationship to a larger national picture, and its roots in the climate of “natural genius” engendered by philosophical movements of the eighteenth century.  Hollander and Rousseau will discuss the art that developed “along unsuspecting paths” and its remarkable resilience and persistence as it has responded to changing life in the United States from the eighteenth century to the present.