The first indication that the drawings of Martín Ramírez were never meant to grace the walls of respectable galleries in Chelsea is the quality of the paper - scraps of what appear like loose-leaf notebook sheets torn from the book of a high-schooler. At first glance they look they look like artful doodles. His obsessive geometry is distorted by madness - there’s a recurrence of tunnels and pathways with dark entrances leading into the unknown. A so-called outsider artist, Ramírez spend much of his life in an institution diagnosed as a catatonic schizophrenic, which provides a reason for his style but no explanation for his genius. Animals look bewildered to be part of his sweeping perspective-defying landscapes and stare at the viewer with heads at cockeyed angles. Cowboys on horses look like the creation of a child but the fate that seems to await them-long pathways into dark tunnels-is anything but innocent. The stunning centerpiece of the show, Untitled (Trains and Tunnels 1952-53,) features imagery that recurs throughout his prolific output: concentric circles rippling outwards like consequences with endless ramifications and tunnel entrances, in this case framed with a subtle splash of red. The work may have been created at the fringes but it has a resonance that’s undiminished after a half century.

Critical Mob