Until last year I thought my father, Samuel Kahn (1927-2007), had largely wasted his life. But as I tremblingly type this essay, I am headed to a Virginia museum displaying a roomful of his psychedelically colourful, unselfconscious, off-kilter, long-forgotten works of art that, it turns out, make people happy. The exhibition Samuel Kahn, Ph.D. + Friends opens on 29 January at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, in its Gordon Art Galleries.
Outside artists have established significant galleries, notably Roy De Forest's Nut Art Movement and Clayton Bailey's First Psychoceramic Church, contributing to the region's vibrant culture.