Thinking outside the square is critical when attempting to define the artistic field known as Outsider Art.
Outsider Art? The term spanks of marginalization and disempowerment. Indeed this form of art has been known by many names, including the disturbing ‘art of the insane’, the spiritual ‘visionary art’ and ‘intuitive art’ and the condescending ‘self taught art’.
Noted writer Jesse Walker characterized the phenomenon of Outsider Art as being “eccentric, engaging, and often apocalyptic. It stands outside the standard schools and movements, and is produced by artists who are usually self-taught and often judged insane”.
UK-based Raw Vision magazine, one of the primary advocates of Outsider Art, typified the creators of such works as being “all kinds of dwellers on the fringes of society. Working outside the fine arts system these people have produced from the depths of their own personalities and for themselves and no one else works of outstanding originality in concept, subject and techniques.”
Indeed it seems that Outsider Art is many things to many people. And perhaps this vigorous attempt to label these works is nothing more than a futile effort on the part of academics, curators and theorists to deconstruct the inferred unexplainable ability of these artists who it is argued, in ‘normal’ circumstance really shouldn’t or wouldn’t be artists at all. A draconian thought perhaps.
So let’s begin at the beginning of this story to understand and explain Outsider Art. The term itself was first coined by art critic Roger Cardinal in his highly influential 1972 book entitled (of course) Outsider Art. This in fact was the English synonym for Art Brut – a French term which literally translates as ‘Raw Art’ or ‘Rough Art’.
This label (Art Brut), in turn, was conceived by French artist Jean Dubuffet, and used to describe art created outside the boundaries of official culture. But what exists outside the boundaries of official culture? Well madness of course. And Dubuffet’s initial focus was on art created by insane asylum inmates. Dubuffet once famously said, in relation to Art Brut that: “Art is at its best when it forgets its very name.” And it was this artistic ‘madness’ that he considered the purest form of visual expression. This was a controversial theory at the time however, since it was inherently at odds with established high culture and its concepts of sequential art history. Yet despite initial dissent, Dubuffet’s categorization became widely recognized as the first incarnation of what modern scholars now label Outsider Art.
This term however would have been nothing more than art theory if not for two major factors that contributed to the awakening interest in the art of the insane at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Firstly the popularity of the Romantic Movement identified madness as an exalted state allowing access to hidden realms. Yes we all recognise that romantic character that is the ‘mad artist’. And secondly locking people up in insane asylums became de rigeur in the early 1800s. A practice which conveniently provided a location for the production of patient-art.
However it was not until 1922 that Outsider Art as an artistic genre first came to public attention. It was then that psychiatrist and art historian Hans Prinzhorn published the now classic Bildnerei der Geisteskranken or Artistry Of The Mentally Ill. Collecting in the course of his research what is now known to be one of the world’s largest creations of ‘psychotic’ art, Prinzhorn examined the origin and nature of human creativity in the context of the prodigious amounts of art that had been created by mentally ill artists in asylums.
Perhaps the most famous early example of what we now consider the outsider artist was Adolf Wolfli. In 1921, a Swiss psychiatrist Walter Morgenthaler published the text A Mental Patient as Artist. This analysis of Wolfli, critiqued an artist who is perhaps history’s most celebrated outsider artist and whose work now hangs in prominent galleries. And in subsequent years, more was written about the genre. Writer John Maizels in particular, tracked the difficulty academics and theorists had with the problem of defining a still developing and expanding field made up of many contrasting elements.
The loan of the Musgrave Kinley Outsider Art Collection to the Irish Museum Of Modern Art in 1998 was seen as a significant move towards the inclusion of the often ignored Outsider Art movement into mainstream art. Moreover an annual Outsider Art Fair has taken place in New York since 1992 attracting international artists, collectors and art theorists in what has become one of the most important events in the global arts calendar.
Meanwhile the Chicago based Intuit – The Center For Intuitive and Outsider Art – continues to live up to its mission of ‘supporting the work of artists who demonstrate little influence from the mainstream art world and seem instead motivated by their unique personal visions’. And websites dedicated solely to the study and promotion of Outsider Art such as Outsider Art.info and The Outsider Art Museum proliferate in the world of cyberspace.
Not to be left out, the Tate Britain has just begun a three-month exhibition on Outsider Art featuring works by some of the key figures in the outsider art movement such as Madge Gill, Scottie Wilson and Pearl Alcock. Others, such as Albert Louden and Charles Benefiel have long held a place in the ‘serious’ art world.
From its origins of being what was once considered to be solely the province of the mentally ill, it seems Outsider Art, with its increasing collectability and rapidly rising prices, has most assuredly come inside.
