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BIOGRAPHY

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Ben Apfelbaum

Ben Apfelbaum has been a collector, student, and scholar of American and Canadian art, folk and vernacular art, outsider art and self-taught art for over thirty years. An alumnus of Antioch College and the University of Chicago , he holds a Master's Degree in American Folk Art Studies from New York University , and has taught for several years within that program as an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Art and Arts Professions and in the Folk Art Institute of the Museum of American Folk Art .

In Atlanta , Apfelbaum has taught at the Atlanta College of Art; he has taught at the Chastain Art Center of the City of Atlanta and at the Spruill Center for the Arts. Guest curator for MAFA on more than one occasion, he authored Beneath the Ice: The Art of the Fish Decoy (N. Y.: E. P. Dutton, 1991) which served as catalog to the popular touring show of the same name. He has written for trade and popular journals, and has been profiled and consulted by several national publications including The New York TIMES and Country Home , and has also appeared in Folk Art , the publication of the Museum of American Folk Art, and the Folk Art Messenger , in addition to contributing essays and articles to several books and catalogs; an article on vernacular architecture in Montgomery, AL was published in the British outsider art journal, Raw Vision , in 1998.

As a private consultant, Mr. Apfelbaum has been involved with many private, corporate, and public collections. He is widely consulted concerning self-taught African American art in the South.

Interested for many years in the work of institutionalized self-taught art makers, he was appointed Curator of the East River Gallery at the Manhattan Psychiatric Center on Ward's Island , the only patient-run exhibition venue of its kind, showing and offering for sale to the public the work of diagnosed psychotic patients, with all funds received going directly to the artists. Apfelbaum also coordinated and was curator of the first exhibition and sale of state-wide in- and out-patient works at a SOHO gallery in 1994. An earlier show of patients' work he was curator of and coordinated in 1992 was photographed in situ and photographically reproduced in 1994 for public exhibition in Russia .

He served as Folk Art Buyer for the Polo-Ralph Lauren Corporation , 1988-1991. In that position, he purchased, priced, placed, merchandised and marketed a full range of traditional folk art and decorative art. He also served as Buyer of Native American Silverwork.

While serving as Consultant to the Conversations At The Castle - proceedings of the Arts Festival of Atlanta Olympics-period program curated by Mary Jane Jacob, Apfelbaum was a Conversant on several of the panels composed of arts professionals and critics from this and several foreign countries.

Currently at work on book projects, one dealing with folk art collectibles and the other with sites in Harlem important in African American history, Apfelbaum has lectured for Sotheby's in New York, various historical societies and art museums around the country, recently for the Memphis Brooks Museum, the Taylor-Benfer Museum, and was keynote speaker at the national convention of the National Society of Decorative Painters in 1994. He delivered a paper on ethical standards in collecting folk art at the 1996 meetings of the Folk Art Society of America. He is currently preparing an article on the implications to the history of American folk art of the candlewick bedspread industry in Georgia ; he expects to expand it into book format in the future.

As a consultant, Apfelbaum completed preliminary editorial work on several volumes planned to accompany the exhibition Souls Grown Deep:African American Vernacular Art of the South , part of the Cultural Olympiad of the Summer Games, 1996, in Atlanta . He also served on selection panels for the Cultural Olympiad.

His installation, Qui Sait L'Avenir? opened in Atlanta 's Nexus Contemporary Art Center in November, 1996, part of the OBSESSIONS show.

Ben Apfelbaum served as a team leader for the Public Art Advisory Board of the Fulton County Arts Council in 1995, and is on the Advisory Board of the Youth Art Connection of the Boys' and Girls' Clubs of Greater Atlanta; he is an advisor to the Art-At-Work program of the Clubs, the Council, and Junior Achievement and the National Black Arts Festival, training youths in the making and marketing of artworks.

He served on the board of ART PAPERS, the international journal of contemporary art criticism.

As a collector, Mr. Apfelbaum favors 19th-century and contemporary Southern photography, 20th-century American and Canadian self-taught arts and crafts from all regions of the countries, and tobacco-related folk art from both countries, as well. He is active in the exploration of the current field, and continues his personal involvement with several working artists. His chosen areas as both appraiser and consultant include American and Canadian folk and decorative arts of three centuries. His documentary photographs have appeared in several publications and in exhibition; his photographs of the late Bessie Harvey were chosen by her family to accompany the Knoxville Museum of Art retrospective of her work.

He is currently Director of Exhibitions for the Spruill Center for the Arts in suburban Atlanta , and serves as Consulting Curator for the Tubman Museum of African American Culture in Macon , GA. In 2003, he served on a N. B. A. F. panel of experts on the topic of evaluating African American Art. He was curator for an exhibition of African American textiles for V.S.A. Georgia as part of the N. B. A. F.; he was the curator of the exhibition, "When I Was A Child…." for the Metro Atlanta Boys & Girls Clubs opened in September of this year. He is the guest curator of an exhibition of the watercolors of the folk artist, Malcah Zeldis, at the Marcus J. C. C. in Atlanta in January, 2004. He serves on the Advisory Board of Atlanta Home Improvement Magazine, and is an antiques columnist for that publication.

APG shows juried by Ben Apfelbaum

Women In Focus 2004 June – July, 2004