Hasta La Ideas

All this week, our friends at Ovation TV are celebrating photography (don’t miss the six-part “Genius of Photography” series or tonight’s David LaChapelle documentary), but come next month, the arts network will train its focus on the extraordinary world of outsider artists. That’s right, Hank Darger fans, on Sunday, May 10, Ovation TV will unveil “Visions & Obsessions,” a week-long look at artists including James Castle, Judy Scott, and Pearl Fryar, a self-taught topiary artist. Among the documentaries to watch for is One Bad Cat, the story of Reverend Albert Wagner, who picked up a paintbrush for the first time at age 50 while in the throes of a mid-life crisis/religious epiphany. Paranoid schizophrenic Alan Streets is the subject of My Name Is Alan and I Paint Pictures, a haunting look at his struggles to succeed as an artist in New York City. Mark your calendar and then check out this trailer for A Man Named Pearl about Fryar, a topiary tour de force.

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