Since the early 1980s, Margaret Bodell has been a leading force in discovering and exhibiting self-taught, outsider, and contemporary artists in New England and New York. She has founded galleries and programs in Connecticut and New York that support new cultural contributors who are self-taught artists working in programs or outside the mainstream. These artists have been exhibited co-equally alongside contemporary artists in the ’90s at Margaret Bodell Gallery in the heart of the East Village. 

 

Bodell was among the original founding dealers of the New York Outsider Art Fair from 1993 to 2012. In 1997, she curated the first survey show of New England’s self-taught and outsider artists entitled “Pure Vision,” which brought together art programs in New England known for nurturing persons with disabilities in studio environments. Over the next three decades, Bodell cofounded studio-based programs Goods NYC and LAND in Brooklyn, along with East Street Arts, Uarts, and Inspire Arts in Connecticut. Simultaneously, she exhibited contemporary and self-taught artists at Umbrella Arts, partnering with gallerist MaryAnn Fahey of E3 Gallery. Umbrella Arts was known for its rare shows of extreme talent and curatorial experimentation and organized several large-scale exhibitions at New York’s Cooper Union and Washington, DC. 

 

In addition, Bodell was an early contributor to the field of Placemaking. Her programs Project Storefronts, City Canvas, and CreateHereNow became national models in economic development after winning several grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, Artplace America, and the New England Foundation for the Arts.

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Revival Arts is a newly formed non-profit supporting creative projects that revitalize communities through the arts.  Revival Arts is currently collaborating with Lyric Hall Theatre in New Haven, CT