Leonard Knight’s recliner at Salvation Mountain; see Been Thinking’s wonderful post and Flickr set for more.
I love Knight’s work, and that of his fellow amateur builders in Zack Godshall’s documentary on them. One need not resent the preening textuality of much contemporary art -which as often as not needs an essay to explain its purpose, a quality which has the admirable effect of keeping employed many thousands of otherwise useless, overeducated pedants like me- to adore folk art. But perhaps it helps.
As is the case with popular music or regularly intelligible jazz, it is a pleasure to experience visual art that requires no curatorial explanation. This is not to say, of course, that there are clear distinctions between the straightforward, the complex, and the overly-obscure (if there is such a thing); all of us have our own thresholds of comprehension, and what is difficult is often rewarding. But the immediacy and power and vitality of, say, Howard Finster, thrills me.
I bet that it’s quite nice to sit in that chair.
