Judith Scott's Bound & Unbound at Brooklyn Museum Challenges Outsider Art Labels

The Brooklyn Museum of Art presents Judith Scott: Bound & Unbound from October 24, 2014 to March 29, 2015 at 200 Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn. Scott, born in 1943 in Cincinnati with Down Syndrome and profound deafness, created over 200 sculptures using a distinctive wrapping technique after joining the Creative Growth Art Center in 1987. Her work involves binding found objects like crutches, baseball bats, and fans with yarn, fabric strips, plastic tape, and wire until the original forms become unrecognizable. Co-curators Catherine Morris and Matthew Higgs deliberately avoid interpreting her work solely through her disabilities, offering minimal wall text. Scott never titled her pieces or discussed her artistic intentions, completing her final sculpture in 2005 before her death at age 61. The exhibition features works like Untitled (1988), a five-foot wall-mounted piece with woolen yarns and green gardening wire, and Untitled (1993) with lavender and burnt sienna yarn creating a womblike shape. Scott worked five days a week for 18 years at Creative Growth, a studio for artists with developmental disabilities that emphasizes artistic freedom over therapy. The show positions Scott within art-historical discourse without marginalizing her as an outsider artist, focusing instead on her sophisticated color sense and formal control.