Outsider art isart made byself-taught individuals who are untrained and untutored in the traditional arts with typically little or no contact with theconventions of theart worlds.
The termoutsider art was coined in 1972 as the title of a book byart criticRoger Cardinal.[1] It is anEnglish equivalent forart brut (French:[aʁbʁyt], "raw art" or "rough art"), a label created in the 1940s byFrench artistJean Dubuffet to describeart created outside the boundaries of official culture. Dubuffet focused particularly on art by those on the outside of the established art scene, using as examplespsychiatric hospital patients, hermits, and spiritualists.[2][3]
Outsider art has emerged as a successful art marketing category; an annualOutsider Art Fair[4] has taken place inNew York since 1993, and there are at least two regularly published journals dedicated to the subject. The term is sometimes applied as a marketing label for art created by people who are outside the mainstream "art world" or "art gallery system", regardless of their circumstances or the content of their work.[5] A more specific term, "outsider music", was later adapted for musicians.
Interest in the art of the mentally ill, along withthat of children and the makers of "peasant art", developed from the end of the 19th century onward, both by psychiatrists such asCesare Lombroso,Auguste Marie or Marcel Réjà, and by artists, such as members of "Der Blaue Reiter" group:Wassily Kandinsky,August Macke,Franz Marc,Alexej von Jawlensky, and others.
What the artists perceived in the work of these groups was an expressive power born of their perceived lack of sophistication. Examples of this were reproduced in 1912 in the first and only issue of their publication,Der Blaue Reiter Almanac. DuringWorld War I, Macke was killed atChampagne in 1914 and Marc was killed atVerdun in 1916; the gap left by these deaths was to some extent filled byPaul Klee, who continued to draw inspiration from these 'primitives'.
Interest in the art ofinsane asylum inmates continued to grow in the 1920s. In 1921, Dr.Walter Morgenthaler published his bookEin Geisteskranker als Künstler (A Psychiatric Patient as Artist) aboutAdolf Wölfli, apsychotic mental patient in his care. Wölfli had spontaneously taken up drawing, and this activity seemed to calm him. His most outstanding work was an illustrated epic of 45 volumes in which he narrated his own imaginary life story. With 25,000 pages, 1,600 illustrations, and 1,500 collages, it is a monumental work. Wölfli also produced a large number of smaller works, some of which were sold or given as gifts. His work is on display at theAdolf Wölfli Foundation in theMuseum of Fine Art,Bern.
A defining moment was the publication ofBildnerei der Geisteskranken (Artistry of the Mentally Ill) in 1922, byHans Prinzhorn. This was the first formal study of psychiatric works, based upon a compilation of thousands of examples from European institutions. The book and the art collection gained much attention from avant-garde artists of the time, including Paul Klee,Max Ernst, andJean Dubuffet.[6]
People with some formal artistic training as well as well-established artists are not immune from mental illness, and may also be institutionalized. For example,William Kurelek, later awarded theOrder of Canada for his artistic life work, as a young man was admitted to theMaudsley Psychiatric Hospital where he was treated forschizophrenia.[7] In the hospital he painted, producingThe Maze, a dark depiction of histortured youth.[8] He was transferred from the Maudsley toNetherne Hospital from November 1953 to January 1955, to work withEdward Adamson (1911–1996), a pioneer ofart therapy, and creator of the Adamson Collection.
French artistJean Dubuffet was particularly struck byBildnerei der Geisteskranken and began his own collection of such art, which he calledart brut orraw art. In 1948 he formed theCompagnie de l'Art Brut along with other artists, includingAndré Breton andClaude Lévi-Strauss.[9] The collection he established became known as theCollection de l'art brut and the curator wasSlavko Kopač for almost three decades.[10] It contains thousands of works and is now permanently housed inLausanne, Switzerland.
Dubuffet characterized art brut as:
Those works created fromsolitude and from pure and authentic creative impulses – where the worries of competition, acclaim and social promotion do not interfere – are, because of these very facts, more precious than the productions of professionals. After a certain familiarity with these flourishings of an exalted feverishness, lived so fully and so intensely by their authors, we cannot avoid the feeling that in relation to these works, cultural art in its entirety appears to be the game of a futile society, a fallacious parade.
- — Jean Dubuffet, "Place à l'incivisme" (December 1987 – February 1988).[11]
Dubuffet argued that 'culture', that is mainstream culture, managed to assimilate every new development in art, and by doing so took away whatever power it might have had. The result was to asphyxiate genuine expression. Art brut was his solution to this problem – only art brut was immune to the influences of culture, immune to being absorbed and assimilated, because the artists themselves were not willing or able to be assimilated.
Dubuffet's championing of Art Brut would not last long. Scholars argue Dubuffet's distaste for the mainstream art world helped ensure that art brut and the Compagnie de l'Art Brut would not survive on a commercial basis. Dubuffet would kill art brut as he defined it in his quest for its authenticity.[9] Three years after the Compagnie de l'Art Brut was formed, Dubuffet dissolved it, caving in to form the more conventional Collection de l'art brut afterward.[9]
The interest in "outsider" practices among twentieth-century artists and critics can be seen as part of a larger emphasis on the rejection of established values within themodernist art milieu. The early part of the 20th century gave rise toCubism and theDada,Constructivist, andFuturist movements in art, all of which involved a dramatic movement away from cultural forms of the past. DadaistMarcel Duchamp, for example, abandoned "painterly" technique to allow chance operations a role in determining the form of his works, or simply to recontextualize existing "ready-made" objects as art. Mid-century artists, includingPablo Picasso, looked outside the traditions of high culture for inspiration, drawing from the artifacts of what they deemed "primitive" societies, the unschooled art made by children, and vulgar advertising graphics. Dubuffet's championing of theart brut – of the insane and others at the margins of society – is yet another example of avant-garde art challenging established cultural values. As with analysis of these other art movements, current discourse indicates art brut is innately tied toprimitivism[9][12] due to its similarity in its borrowing of personal "de-patriation" and exoticization of familiar yet alien forms.
A number of terms are used to describe art that is loosely understood as "outside" ofofficial culture. Definitions of these terms vary and overlap.[13] The editors ofRaw Vision, a leading journal in the field, suggest that "Whatever views we have about the value of controversy itself, it is important to sustain creative discussion by way of an agreed vocabulary". Consequently, they lament the use of "outsider artist" to refer to almost any untrained artist. "It is not enough to be untrained, clumsy or naïve. Outsider Art is virtually synonymous with Art Brut in both spirit and meaning, to that rarity of art produced by those who do not know its name."
In recent years, an increasingly critical view has developed of the different, often discriminatory terms and the separation of non-academic and academic art. According to art historian and curator Susanne Pfeffer, being an artist is not a choice but a destiny; only one's background, gender or class determines whether someone can study art and thus be socially recognized as an artist. Art that therefore does not take place within the recognized system is usually rejected by this system. Due to the system's power of definition, which always lies with the system and not with the artists themselves, exclusionary terms are used that are never intended to be inclusive.[14]
Theart criticJerry Saltz advocates abolishing the separation between "outsider art" and institutionalized, official art and including non-academic art in the presentation of permanent collections in major museums. He calls for artists such asHilma af Klimt,Bill Traylor,Adolf Wölfli andJohn Kane to be canonized, as their discrimination tells a false and untruthful story ofart history.[15]
Roberta Smith, art critic for theNew York Times, also advocates a dissolution of the separation of non-academic and academic art and calls for museums to integrate non-academic art equally into their collection presentations. Smith points to the outstanding artistic quality of works by self-taught artists, which require a rewriting of the 20th-century art canon.[16]
In 2023 and 2024, theSprengel Museum Hannover and theKunstsammlungen Chemnitz presented the exhibitionWhich Modernism? In- and Outsiders of the Avant-Garde, with the intention of correcting the view of "naive" artists as "outsiders" and demonstrating their close links to the avant-garde.[17] The exhibition described "naive art" as a part of modernism and a stylistic phenomenon of equal status. "Naïve" artists followed their own style, influencing other artists and being influenced by other artists.[18]
