Singular Spaces

This two-volume work completes the vast and innovative study of art spaces created by self-taught artists in Spain by Jo Farb Hernández, Director Emeritus of SPACES at José State University's Natalie and James Thompson Art Gallery, the world's most important archive of this type of monumental site.

These sites developed organically and by addition, without any urban planning or engineering: they are both complete and evolving. Often highly fanciful and Donquichottesque, the works are characterised by incongruous juxtapositions, so that the result of this dynamic approach to creation appears impulsive and spontaneous.

The book presents and analyses ninety-nine artists with their astonishing and idiosyncratic houses, gardens and sculptures, most of which have never before been thoroughly documented or published. The author has ensured that all regions of Spain and all types of spaces and materials are represented.

The works of these artists are studied through a historical and theoretical contextualisation in fields as diverse as art, art history, anthropology, vernacular architecture, Hispanic studies and folklore.