Architectural Fantasies

“Jo Farb Hernández is a leading expert in the field of art environments, and she makes an ideal guide, bringing a depth of knowledge to this multidimensional field.” – Laura Hutson Hunter * BookPage, STARRED Review *“Gathering decades’ worth of research and documentation, the book includes spectacular photographs by Fred Scruton and highlights the remarkable diversity of hand-built environments….Hernández champions these individualistic works as monumental exemplars of the vast potential and wonderful weirdness of the human imagination.” – Kate Mothes * Colossal *“These unusual environments represent a magnificent act of resistance. They also embody the idea of ephemerality in creation and, above all, the idea that art, in all its forms—like that of Salvation Mountain of Leonard Knight—can save us.” – Sarah Lombardi, Director, Collection de l’Art Brut, Lausanne, Switzerland“Jo Farb Hernández captures the boundless breadth of inventions embedded in the United States’ most extraordinary art environments. This book is an essential record of alternate stories and thriving contributions to the fields of art and architecture.” – Valérie Rousseau, Curatorial Chair and Senior Curator of 20th-Century & Contemporary Art, American Folk Art Museum (AFAM)“Thorough and very readable documentation and analysis of monumental and magical architectural creations by self-taught makers across the US. Beautifully photographed and published. A must for both the scholar and layperson.” – Thomas K. Seligman, Freidenrich Director Emeritus, Cantor Arts Center, Stanford University

Jo Farb Hernández

Director Emerita of SPACES (Saving and Preserving Arts and Cultural Environments) and Professor Emerita at San José State University, Jo Farb Hernández is an internationally recognized scholar of the work of self-taught artists, and an award-winning author, curator, and photographer. Hernández has been particularly focused on the field of vernacular art environment builders for over five decades – first in the US and, for the last 25 years, in Spain – and is one of very few scholars worldwide to dedicate their careers to this under-recognized group of makers. Notably, her series Singular Spaces: From the Eccentric to the Extraordinary in Spanish Art Environments, based on two dozen years of primary fieldwork in Spain, provides an encyclopedic treatment of the field.

Fred Scruton

Fred Scruton worked as a Brooklyn-based freelance photographer of artwork and architecture for twenty years, and his photography and writings have been reproduced in numerous books and periodicals, including Raw Vision and Folk Art Messenger magazines. His work has also been exhibited widely at such venues as The Drawing Center and OK Harris Gallery in New York City. Now Emeritus Professor of Art at PennWest University, Scruton travels extensively throughout the United States to document self-taught, “outsider,” and “visionary” artists and their built environments. Often befriending them, his process of collaborative documentation typically extends over many years, with repeated return visits.

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