Collection: Detournement: A Coherent Vision, Selected By Greg Roberts

About the exhibition

The depth and breadth of the work that is created by NIAD artists is exhilarating and challenging. As art is at its best. After having reviewed the entirety of NIAD’s collection numerous times over the previous year, I have decided on the 60 pieces by 30 artists contained in this exhibition. I sought art that was viscerally provocative, humanely powerful, and personally insightful.

The show’s name is derived from the fact that one third of the art selected features pre-existing images that have been manipulated or refined to add new and additional meaning. This technique known as “detournement” transforms artworks by creatively re-imagining them with bold artistic enhancements resulting in the possibility of an entirely new translation, generally at odds with the original, often, consumerist intent.

When a long-time friend and former gallerist asked NIAD’s Tim Buckwalter if this exhibition had a theme, his reply was “it has a coherent vision.”

In October 2019, I will gladly settle for that.

About the selector

Greg Roberts was raised in coastal Alabama in a world where art was mostly what nature provided… shells, driftwood, rocks. Or, it was imagined landscapes, with voluptuous European bathers, mass produced and selected from a chain furniture store.

It wasn’t until exposure in the early ‘90s to a pair of giant papier maché celebrity busts from Creativity Explored that acquiring original visual art became a viable option.

Artist focused galleries, like NIAD, have led Greg to build collections for his home and for others, with an emphasis on self-taught and neuro-diverse artists.