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Haralson County Brutalists

Just as the Italian Renaissance produced its Leonardo and Michelangelo; just as England’s Glorious Revolution produced its Milton; and just as the Golden Age of Television produced its majestic Milton Berle, so did the industrial arc welder of progress that was Accidentalism produce the Haralson County Brutalists: Franz Emmettel, Hans Blecht, Patricia Rasmussen, Gianni Enzo, and Werner Shelt.

Franz Emmettel
(1938-1986)

"What I intend by a work’s 'precognition' is the form it assumed before being formed, which resides wholly in the mind of the viewer. That is to say, the artist is always too late to the scene, necessary only insofar as he might call attention to a work’s former form by negating (maybe even distorting or destroying) its present form." 
 “Precognition and the Art within Art” (1970)

franz em

Hans Blecht
(1934-1968)

"There is no place that art is not. There is no art that is not place. There is no place where objects are not. There is no place where place is not. There is no object that is not object. I object. I, object. You see?" 
 “We Are Everywhere, Are YOU?” (1968)

hans b
patricia r

Patricia Rasmussen
(1950-1989)

"When you look at me, you see a word—woman, chick, broad, dame—but I have written my own name on the buildings of this town and in the earth of the fields. I have bitten the teat of the old world and spit out the fresh milk of steel and corrugation and wild bitumen." 
“Nobody/Not Body.” rpt. in Tales from the Accidental World, Carrollton, Georgia, 1958-Present (1973)

Gianni Enzo 
(1900-1971)

 "Art must be dangerous, much more than dangerous. And of course it must simultaneously be generative and destructive. Art must announce Shiva—creation and annihilation—or nothing."
quoted in Playing with Fire: The Explosive Life of Gianni Enzo (1973)

gianni enzo

Werner Shelt
(1943-?)

For more information on Werner Shelt, please Contact Us.

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