Singular Spaces: From the Eccentric to the Extraordinary in Spanish Art Environments

Published by leading outsider art imprint Raw Vision, Singular Spaces is a groundbreaking survey of art environments created by self-taught artists from mainland Spain. The book introduces and examines 45 artists and their idiosyncratic sculptures, gardens and buildings, most of which have never been published. The sites are developed organically, without formal architectural or engineering plans; they are at once evolving and complete. Often highly fanciful and quixotic, the work is frequently characterized by incongruous juxtapositions, an approach that appears impulsive and spontaneous. Director of the organization SPACES (Saving and Preserving Arts and Cultural Environments), co-publisher of this volume, Jo Farb Hernández combines detailed case studies of the artists and their work with contextualized historical and theoretical references to art history, anthropology, architecture, Spanish area studies, and folklore, thus breaking down the standard compartmentalization of genres. As such, she reveals how most creators of art environments, who are building within their own personal spaces, fuse their creations with their daily lives. NOTE: this 600-page book includes a CD with 564 additional pages of pdfs providing full documentation of each component of each site, along with site plans. The book includes 1,306 photos and the CD includes 4,179 more.