Gallery Statement

As the 21st century unfolds itself to a captive audience of both  spectators  and participants, the Carl Hammer Gallery stands ready  in its third and newest  location since its inaugural opening in 1979.  For over thirty years, this gallery  has been one of the primary  international pioneers discovering, exhibiting,  and contributing to the  scholarship and connoisseurship of outsider art. This, in turn, has helped  lead to the incorporation of outsider art into the contemporary art  mainstream. The subsequent learning process contributed immensely  to our uniqueness and to the gallery's growth and vision. Later,  the addition of mainstream artists to the gallery's list of those it  represented was aided, in large part,  by the aesthetic earlier developed  by the outsider art influence. Today the artists we are proud to go  forward with into the 21st century are all decisively unique in their own  personal visions and means of expression. They all share, however, in the  process of successfully identifying that which makes us American, and,  more importantly, that which makes us all Human. Their issues, as seen  through their art, celebrate both the triumphs and tragedies of the  human experience and range from the personal exploration of the  ravages of breast cancer, to the exaltation of achieving freedom from  externally imposed slavery.

            As we celebrate being alive in a new millennium, we recognize that there will be ever new problems and challenges. We are proud of our representation of artists / visionaries who will aid us in the understanding of our struggle and in our adaptation to change and the future.    

Carl F. Hammer

Director,   Carl Hammer Gallery,  Inc