HENRY DARGER: THE VIVIAN GIRLS EMERGE. As you quite possibly know by now, Henry Darger emerged from a very troubled youth to become a very solitary adult who imagined a charming yet terror-filled fantasy universe in artwork and writings that only became known after his death in 1973. The leading characters in Darger's apocalyptic narrative are plucky sisters he called The Vivian Girls.

New York has hosted far bigger displays of Darger's fantastic art than Henry Darger: The Vivian Girls Emerge (now extended through January 13, 2007 at the Andrew Edlin Gallery), but this show has something none of the others have had: Darger's The Battle of Calverhine. This is not one of Darger's paradaisical panoramas, populated by frolicking children and outsized flora--though examples of such are included in the show. Nor is it one of his crudely limned depictions of conflict and torture--though one can find at least one relatively tame example of that on display.

No, The Battle of Calverhine is different--a large, dense, intense, highly textured collage that likely held a position of prominence in Darger's apartment/studio for many years and now hangs on public display in the United States for the first time. So I learned from the gallery's Lisa Solomine, who kindly showed me a copy of an old photo of Darger's apartment in which the unrestored work comes across as a chunk of nondescript junk and told me about how layers of varnish had been removed from it to reveal its details. Scrutinizing it in its current state helped me gain a greater understanding of the breadth of Darger's work.

The gallery show also includes some artfully constructed Darger collages--many of which reminded me of the design in Yellow Submarine (especially the Eleanor Rigby sequence).

Catching my eye were some "Girlscout" pictures, including this pair:
















untitled, (Abbieannian Girlscouts Rangers)
8 x 12 in.
watercolor, pencil & collage on paper






















Flanengoe Girlscouts Thirty Third Degree Rangers
8 x 12 in.
watercolor and pencil on paper



Seeing these so soon after the November publication of Thomas Pynchon's Against the Day (which I'm still reading while avoiding the reviews) underscored my association of Darger's child heroines with Pynchon's Chums of Chance and their counterparts, all "inspired" by the protagonists of pulp adventures popular during Darger's childhood.

Source of images © Andrew Edlin Gallery
All images © Kiyoko Lerner