Nobody’s Savant: The Mythic Fantasy of Autistic Genius
I knew I had to write this the moment I left the cinema. I felt so confronted by Nobody’s Sweetie, a documentary about the legacy of abstract painter Dale Frank (b. 1959), diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder in his sixties. I am also an abstract painter, diagnosed with ASD at age sixteen, and now in my thirties. Any connection I have with Frank could appear arbitrary—I have never met him, I have no insight into his identity or experience, and I do not claim to speak for him. Still, I feel I have something at stake in the conversation about his legacy.
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Nobody’s Savant: The Mythic Fantasy of Autistic Genius by Nunzio Madden is featured in full in Issue 3 of Memo magazine.
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Derek Jarman’s Blue (1993) is a film without images—just a luminous ultramarine field and an evocative soundtrack. Made as he was dying of AIDS-related illness, Blue resists spectacle, embracing abstraction, memory, and loss. Thirty years on, it continues to evolve, expanding across artists, mediums, and generations.
