Michael Stipe, Another Outsider at the Art Fair
The New York Times
The R.E.M. singer-songwriter is parting with works from his collection of Southern artists — but their inspiration lingers on.
In the video for R.E.M.’s first single, “Radio Free Europe,” the band’s members can be seen walking in slow-motion through the Summerville, Ga., home and yard of the self-taught artist and Baptist minister Howard Finster. A landscape of lush foliage packed with folk art sculptures and salvaged objects, Finster’s “Paradise Garden” combined the regional traditions of evangelism and do-it-yourself object making and had become a popular pilgrimage spot for South Georgia artists, musicians and other creative types. The garden gave R.E.M.’s 1983 video a dreamlike quality and a recognizably Southern sense of place, setting it apart from the other hits on MTV at the time.
Finster, whose art was also featured on the cover of R.E.M.’s second album, “Reckoning,” was one of several Southern outsider artists championed by the band and its frontman Michael Stipe during their early years in the vibrant indie-rock music scene of Athens, Ga. A drawing of an exuberant duck-like creature by the rural Alabama artist Juanita Rogers can be seen on the back cover of the group’s widely admired fourth album, “Life’s Rich Pageant,” and the hilltop installation of metal whirligigs at the Rabbittown, Ga., home of another self-taught artist, R.A. Miller, stars in a propulsive 20-minute experimental music video, “Left of Reckoning,” directed by Stipe’s art school professor James Herbert.
Stipe, who as an art student was responsible for R.E.M.’s graphic design and visual identity, was behind many of these collaborations. With teachers and classmates, he visited the homes of nearby artists like Miller, Finster, Dilmus Hall and St. EOM (Eddie Owens Martin), with some visits evolving into long-term friendships. Stipe picked up a few artworks along the way for inspiration or as gestures of support — among them Hall’s portrait of the legendary gospel singer Mahalia Jackson, and colorful crayon drawings of wrenches and circular blades by the sawmill worker turned wood carver Leroy Person.
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