Case study of Outsider Art

Outsider art is a broad genre, often not very well known and not appreciated enough. According to the dictionary definition provided doften not very well known and not appreciated enough. According to the definition from provided dictionary from Oxford, outsider art is the following:

But there is much more behind this genre than the simple need to express of some artist without education in this field. 

Outsider art is art produced as a pure stream of creativity by artists who are not and do not want by their own choice to be part of conventional art. Academicism and the power of the French Academy was remarkable, no one became an artist unless approved by the Academy through the Salon, which obviously caused the Impressionist movement and several free subgenres to break the rigidity that surrounded the art world. Nowadays many academic artists are forgotten and sometimes even despised for something over which they had no control while the Impressionists are often acclaimed because their works are soaked in raw emotions. Outsider art it is still dusty, however, and as the name suggests a record from outside of the human mind.

The term outsider art was introduced into the lexicon in 1972 by British writer Roger Cardinal as an English-language equivalent of the French art brut. 'Brut' could also be translated to 'Raw', a small but fitting detail for this genre. By the 1980s, however, the term had expanded to encompass a much greater range of vernacular and “marginal” arts.

Outsider art is art made by self-taught or supposedly naïve artists with typically little or no contact with the conventions of the art worlds. In many cases, their work is discovered only after their deaths. Often, outsider art illustrates extreme mental states, unconventional ideas, or elaborate fantasy worlds, and this is the main difference from the Oxford definition.

Henry Darger, one of the most famous outsider artist, created over 300 watercolour and collage paintings to tell his story, his work now being one one of the most celebrated examples outsider art. He has become famous for his posthumously discovered 15,145-page fantasy novel manuscript called The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What Is Known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco-Angelinian War Storm, Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion.  

Psychologist John MacGregor considered Darger a serial killer who restrained his urges, getting the energy for his creative work from them. Darger is today one of the most famous figures in the history of outsider art probably due to this powerful and complex emotion poured in his art. At the Outsider Art Fair, held every January in New York City, and at auction, his work is among the highest-priced of any self-taught artist. The American Folk Art Museum in New York opened a Henry Darger Study Center in 2001. His work now commands upwards of $750,000.

Darger left no will and no immediate surviving relatives when he died in 1973. Eventually, distant relatives of Darger began making legal claims to his artwork, alleging that the Lerners did not have title or any other right to benefit from the sale of Darger's work. The dispute is currently in state court in Cook County, Illinois. The moral is that Outsider art still ends with financial benefit even without the artist. It is however a niche genre and very flexible, as we have just explored in the manuscript format of The Story of the Vivian Girls. 

You can find a fantastic and more in depth study of Henry Darger produced by The Canvas by clicking here. 

Mostafa Heddaya explored another conundrum regarding outsider art - is the latter a product of a Patriotist society? 

Her study followed a major outsider art survey that was overwhelmingly male. She declared that “Though it’s impossible to fully diagnose here the condition that has guaranteed institutional and commercial recognition for an almost exclusively male cadre of ‘outsiders,’ the modern conception of productive madness is one overwhelmingly dominated by the narrative of the male madman whose insanity is not rudely clinical but intellectual, essential, and artistically or aesthetically liberated.” 

This aesthetic style, however, is not reserved for anyone: children, madmen, self-taught or untrained artists, men or women. There are no standards for producing this type of art as it itself is outside any pattern or canon of society. 

For example self-taught Chinese artist Guo Fengyi’s works evoke a “particular journey of spiritual and metaphysical significance, belonging to an older generation whose embrace of Chinese folk culture imparts a unique knowledge of history, myth and mystery. Her works on paper are composed of finely controlled brushwork that blend and weave into a composition of lustrous images; suggestions of both human figure and otherworldly beings.” Her career started in a rubber factory, but she was forced to retire at 39 after struggles with severe arthritis. Practicing Qi Gong helped alleviate her painful symptoms, which is when her visions started. She drew them with ink. Some artworks stretched 20 feet long. Her colorful palette and delicate linework was an uncanny accompaniment to the ghostly, fantastical creatures that populated her inner world. Fengyi collaborated with established artists like feminist icon Judy Chicago, but she was largely unknown during her lifetime.

There is a lot to tell, I hope this is a brief introduction that can spark a shred of interest in this wonderful world still impoverished.