Inside Outsider Art

January 24, 2016 3:28 PM

This weekend, New York City hosted the 24th Annual Outsider Art Fair. Director Rebecca Hoffman shares some highlights, the New York Times provides an overview, and Bloomberg Business considers whether Outsider Art has gone mainstream. Meanwhile, a Christie's Ousider Art auction the same weekend brought in over 1.5 million dollars. [h/t]
posted by Room 641-A (10 comments total)

Those Gil Batle egg shells are gorgeous. They remind me of Grayson Perry using sexually explicit scenes on his old-school pottery urns. So much more delicate, though, and just beautiful in their execution.
posted by Paul Slade at 4:05 PM on January 24, 2016

The narrative behind many self-taught artists is a powerful draw, and the literal outsider status of these works—their galleries listing the price online, the comparative affordability of much of the art, the thrill of discovering yet another self-taught artist toiling in obscurity—is part of what makes the genre so special.

There are outsiders who merely do not have a MFA and are not professional artists per se, and then there are outsiders who are patients and prisoners. In fact, the term "outsider art" ("art brut") was coined by Jean Dubuffet, who was in turn influenced by Hans Prinzhorn's book Artistry of the Mentally Ill.
posted by gemutlichkeit at 5:21 PM on January 24, 2016 [4 favorites]

How exciting! Considering how male artists have long dominated the traditional fine arts scene, surely the Outsider Art exhibit, with its emphasis on marginalized artists, will find a much more balanced representation, right?


Oh.
posted by Lou Stuells at 6:04 PM on January 24, 2016 [2 favorites]

There are outsiders who merely do not have a MFA and are not professional artists per se, and then there are outsiders who are patients and prisoners. In fact, the term "outsider art" ("art brut") was coined by Jean Dubuffet, who was in turn influenced by Hans Prinzhorn's book Artistry of the Mentally Ill.

Thank you for that, it's an important distinction.
posted by Room 641-A at 6:14 PM on January 24, 2016

I see, as usual, that the artists selected to show are almost all men.
posted by chance at 6:58 PM on January 24, 2016 [2 favorites]

I just get confused as hell by this. How does this work and how do people get into this and sell their work for this much? What type of framework do you need to do that?

I will never be able to afford to go to an art school, and I'm part of several marginalized groups. How does the marketing and capital come from this? Who purchases it, and why? And why don't more of us get access to this? Also, how do I get my artwork sold? WEIRD STUFF!
posted by yueliang at 10:00 PM on January 24, 2016 [1 favorite]

To make it in the traditional art world, you need an impressive command of ArtSpeak and a lengthy C.V. To make it as an Outsider Artist, you need to be entirely self-taught, have no idea about the art world, and, especially, demonstrate some spectacularly eccentric attitudes. Southern Gothic Christians do pretty well. Many of the original outsider artists were in fact inmates in insane asylums. Outsider art can be beautiful (e.g. Watts Towers). It is often obsessively detailed (i.e. one of the original outsiders: Wölfi.) It can be obsessively concerned with an elaborate fictional world (i.e. the spectacular Henry Darger. I saw a film on him once). Obsession is certainly a key concept here. Skill is not, of course, although a little skill can go a long way.

One thing it cannot be is high-priced art represented by Christie's. Oh. Wait.
posted by kozad at 8:57 AM on January 25, 2016 [3 favorites]

A tangent, but if you're interested in the insider vs. outsider art worlds, here's a great book. It's fictional, but it's brilliant and pretty well-written. The story involves an art dealer who owns a low-rent building and discovers a room vacated by an outsider artist, and things get interesting from there ( a little like 'Art School Confidential') It's a genre-mystery but still really good, especially when it comes to the idea of capitalizing on the pain and brutality of the artist's life.
posted by GospelofWesleyWillis at 12:24 PM on January 25, 2016 [1 favorite]

Also: Raw Vision magazine, and Creativity Explored, where you can buy outsider art from SF artists in a really cool art therapy program. I bought a few things for under $100 each. Well-worth supporting. One of their artists was Micheal B. Loggins, who did a moving piece called "Fears of Your LIfe" that describes the daily experience of living with a severe disability.
posted by GospelofWesleyWillis at 12:32 PM on January 25, 2016 [1 favorite]

Actually, you know what the fetishization of backstory behind outsider art reminds me of? The Mast Brothers "scandal", which is covered very well in this essay here ("What the Mast Brothers Scandal Tells Us About Ourselves").
posted by gemutlichkeit at 2:32 PM on January 31, 2016