"Questioning Categories of ‘Folk’ and ‘Outsider’ Art: Methods Toward a Counter-history"
Tuesday, October 27th, 4:45 PM
Goldwin Smith Hall, G22
Abstract
Art history has produced and codified violent taxonomies of “outsider” and “folk”, categories which have historically excluded and marginalized aesthetic practices in the US South and particularly the work of Black Southern artists and architects. This talk will introduce the triangulated relationships of three Southern artists—Beverly Buchanan (1940–2015), Mary Lou Furcron (c. 1912-2008), and Judith McWillie (b. 1946)—whose lives and practices put critical pressure on these terms. Engaging with excerpts, transcription, and selected stills from an experimental video recording McWillie made with Buchanan in 1995 in Athens, Georgia, this talk will center Buchanan’s, McWillie’s, and Furcron’s own words to situate their relational, place-based practices. Using experimental methods that draw from performance studies, media studies, and the disability arts movement, this presentation will argue for oral history, transcription, and low-resolution media as vital sites of counter-history.
Biographies
Mo Costello (b. 1989) is an artist and educator drawn to the social life of objects. Costello’s practice revolves around the maintenance of small-scale, community-supported infrastructure for the visual and performing arts. Together with Katz Tepper, she curated the 2026 exhibition Beverly’s Athens: Beverly Buchanan in Athens Georgia at the University of Georgia’s Athenaeum and edited the book Beverly Buchanan, Athens, GA, 8 July 1995: A Video by Judith McWillie (Soberscove Press, 2026). Costello lives in Athens, Georgia.
Katz Tepper (b. 1987, Florida) is an artist and writer who plays with video, text, and other materials in Chicago, Illinois. Their practice sides with discards, excess, and quotidian media. They are a 2026-2027 T^r~a`n*s S^t~u*d~i*e^s at the C*o~m~m*o^ns Fellow with the University of Kansas’ T^r~a`n*s S^t~u*d~i*e^s Initiative, and were a 2026 3Arts/Bodies of Work artist-in-residence in the Disability Studies program at the University of Illinois Chicago. Together with Mo Costello, they curated the 2026 exhibition Beverly’s Athens: Beverly Buchanan in Athens Georgia at the University of Georgia’s Athenaeum and edited the book Beverly Buchanan, Athens, GA, 8 July 1995: A Video by Judith McWillie (Soberscove Press, 2026).
