Outsider Art

Outsider Art
Author: Roger Cardinal
Publisher:
Total Pages: 200
Release: 1972
Genre: Psychology
ISBN:

A look at twenty-nine artists who are "outside culture," unencumbered by "all kinds of cultural, social, indeed psychological prejudices."--p. 7.

The Invention of ›Outsider Art‹

The Invention of ›Outsider Art‹
Author: Marion Scherr
Publisher: transcript Verlag
Total Pages: 305
Release: 2022-09-30
Genre: Art
ISBN: 3839462509

What does it mean to be called an ›Outsider‹? Marion Scherr investigates structural inequalities and the myth of the Other in Western art history, examining the role of ›Outsider Art‹ in contemporary art worlds in the UK. By shifting the focus from art world professionals to those labelled ›Outsider Artists‹, she counteracts one-sided representations of them being otherworldly, raw, and uninfluenced. Instead, the artists are introduced as multi-faceted individuals in constant exchange with their social environment, employing diverse strategies in dealing with their exclusion. The book reframes their voices and artworks as complex, serious and meaningful cultural contributions, and challenges their attested Otherness in favour of a more inclusive, all-encompassing understanding of art.

Artistry of the Mentally Ill

Artistry of the Mentally Ill
Author: H. Prinzhorn
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 312
Release: 2013-11-11
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 3662009161

No one is more conscious of the faults of this work than the author. Therefore some self -criticism should be woven into this foreward. There are two possible methodologically pure solutions to this book's theme: a de scriptive catalog of the pictures couched in the language of natural science and accom panied by a clinical and psychopathological description of the patients, or a completely metaphysically based investigation of the process of pictorial composition. According to the latter, these unusual works, explained psychologically, and the exceptional circum stances on which they are based would be integrated as a playful variation of human expression into a total picture of the ego under the concept of an inborn creative urge, behind which we would then only have to discover a universal need for expression as an instinctive foundation. In brief, such an investigation would remain in the realm of phenomenologically observed existential forms, completely independent of psychiatry and aesthetics. The compromise between these two pure solutions must necessarily be piecework and must constantly defend itself against the dangers of fragmentation. We are in danger of being satisfied with pure description, the novelistic expansion of details and questions of principle; pitfalls would be very easy to avoid if we had the use of a clearly outlined method. But the problems of a new, or at least never seriously worked, field defy the methodology of every established subject.

Everyday Genius

Everyday Genius
Author: Gary Alan Fine
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 343
Release: 2006-08-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0226249603

From Henry Darger's elaborate paintings of young girls caught in a vicious war to the sacred art of the Reverend Howard Finster, the work of outsider artists has achieved unique status in the art world. Celebrated for their lack of traditional training and their position on the fringes of society, outsider artists nonetheless participate in a traditional network of value, status, and money. After spending years immersed in the world of self-taught artists, Gary Alan Fine presents Everyday Genius, one of the most insightful and comprehensive examinations of this network and how it confers artistic value. Fine considers the differences among folk art, outsider art, and self-taught art, explaining the economics of this distinctive art market and exploring the dimensions of its artistic production and distribution. Interviewing dealers, collectors, curators, and critics and venturing into the backwoods and inner-city homes of numerous self-taught artists, Fine describes how authenticity is central to the system in which artists—often poor, elderly, members of a minority group, or mentally ill—are seen as having an unfettered form of expression highly valued in the art world. Respected dealers, he shows, have a hand in burnishing biographies of the artists, and both dealers and collectors trade in identities as much as objects. Revealing the inner workings of an elaborate and prestigious world in which money, personalities, and values affect one another, Fine speaks eloquently to both experts and general readers, and provides rare access to a world of creative invention-both by self-taught artists and by those who profit from their work. “Indispensable for an understanding of this world and its workings. . . . Fine’s book is not an attack on the Outsider Art phenomenon. But it is masterful in its anatomization of some of its contradictions, conflicts, pressures, and absurdities.”—Eric Gibson, Washington Times

Songs in the Key of Z

Songs in the Key of Z
Author: Irwin Chusid
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
Total Pages: 306
Release: 2000
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1556523726

Irwin Chusid profiles a number of "outsider" musicians - those who started as "outside" and eventually came "in" when the listening public caught up with their radical ideas. Included are The Shaggs, Tiny Tim, Syd Barrett, Joe Meek, Captain Beefheart, The Cherry Sisters, Daniel Johnston, Harry Partch, Wesley Wilis, and others.

Art Brut

Art Brut
Author: Lucienne Peiry
Publisher: Rizzoli Publications
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2006-09-05
Genre: Art
ISBN: 2080305433

In the early 20th-century, European avant-garde artists began to look beyond the accepted canons of Western art in a search for new sources of inspiration. "Primitive" art, drawings by children, the art of the insane, and graffiti all opened up new avenues for experimentation and artistic creation. At the end of World War II, leading French artist Jean Dubuffet became interested in the works being produced by psychiatric patients and by other social outcasts. In 1948 he founded the Compagnie de l'Art Brut to document the collections he had begun, and in 1976 the collection moved to its permanent home in Lausanne. This critically acclaimed book traces the history of the concept of Art Brut, a movement which has had a profound effect on artistic and social history. The account is completed by biographical notes on the featured artists and an extensive bibliography. This revised edition contains up-to-date information about modern exponents of Art Brut and the collection itself, including two new images of artist Judith Scott's work. All the works reproduced, most from the collection created by Dubuffet, have retained their subversive freedom, which continues to fascinate and inspire artists and collectors today.

Groundwaters

Groundwaters
Author: Charles Russell
Publisher: Prestel Publishing
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2011
Genre: Art
ISBN: 9783791344904

KEYNOTE:More than 100 years of unschooled artistic genius is gathered in this wide-ranging survey that will delight and inform Outsider Art's rapidly growing audience. Visionary art, art brut, art of the insane, naïve art, vernacular art, "raw vision"--what do all these and many other categories describe? An art made outside the boundaries of official culture, first recognized more than a century ago by German psychiatrists who appreciated the profound artistic expression in the work of institutionalized patients. Promoted by brilliant museum curators like Alfred Barr and artists like Jean Dubuffet, such work became a wellspring of modern and contemporary art. This volume brings together works by twelve of the most influential self-taught artists to emerge during the past century. Each represents a facet of the outsider art phenomenon, from mental patients like Adolf Wölfli and Martín Ramírez, through vernacular masters like Bill Traylor and Thornton Dial, to artists who seem to be in touch with other worlds, such as Madge Gill and Henry Darger. Related artists are featured along with each key figure, allowing a fuller picture to emerge. This book presents a narrative of the history of outsider art, clarifies predominant theoretical issues, and draws comparisons with the modernist tradition. It brings into focus the enormous contributions self-taught artists have made to our understanding of creative genius and presents them in a book that will enthrall anyone interested in Outsider Art. AUTHOR: Charles Russell is Professor Emeritus of English and American Studies at Rutgers University, Newark. He is a contributing editor to Raw Vision, an international magazine of outsider art, and is on the editorial board of the International Journal of Self-Taught and Outsider Art. ILLUSTRATIONS: 180 colour

Outsider Art

Outsider Art
Author: David Maclagan
Publisher: Reaktion Books
Total Pages: 194
Release: 2010-01-15
Genre: Art
ISBN: 1861897170

The term outsider art has been used to describe work produced exterior to the mainstream of modern art by certain self-taught visionaries, spiritualists, eccentrics, recluses, psychiatric patients, criminals, and others beyond the perceived margins of society. Yet the idea of such a raw, untaught creativity remains a contentious and much-debated issue in the art world. Is this creative instinct a natural, innate phenomenon, requiring only the right circumstances—such as isolation or alienation—in order for it to be cultivated? Or is it an idealistic notion projected onto the art and artists by critics and buyers? David Maclagan argues that behind the critical and commercial hype lies a cluster of assumptions about creative drives, the expression of inner worlds, originality, and artistic eccentricity. Although outsider art is often presented as a recent discovery, these ideas, Maclagan reveals, belong to a tradition that goes back to the Renaissance, when the modern image of the artist began to take shape. In Outsider Art, Maclagan challenges many of the current opinions about this increasingly popular field of art and explores what happens to outsider artists and their work when they are brought within the very world from which they have excluded themselves.

Vernacular Visionaries

Vernacular Visionaries
Author: The Museum of International Folk Art, Santa Fe, New Mexico
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 176
Release: 2003-01-01
Genre: Art
ISBN: 0300101732

Outsider Art is a name for the often mesmerizing creations of those who live and work at a distance from prevailing notions about mainstream artistic trends, individuals who are frequently unaware of themselves as artists or their works as art. This book presents and discusses some of the 20th century's most significant examples of Outsider Art. artists from around the world, including Gedewon, a cleric from Ethiopia who made unique and psychedelic talismans; William Hawkins, an African-American self-taught artist with a unique pop sensibility; the Mexican artist Martin Ramirez, creator of large-scale works that tell tales of mestizo life; Nek Chand Saini, whose Rock Garden in India is a leading visionary site; Hung Tung, whose colourful scrolls reflect both traditional Taiwanese culture and fantastic imagination; former Navajo medicine man Charlie Willeto, carver of raw, expressionistic figures and animals; Anna Zemankova, Czech maker of dreamy, biomorphic drawings, perhaps done in a trance or mediumistic state; and Italian artist Carlo Zinelli, whose bold graphic compositions display incredible patterns and energy. of international Outsider Art and demonstrates the importance of place and time - as well as internal genius - in these artists' creative processes.

Outsider Art

Outsider Art
Author: Daniel Wojcik
Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi
Total Pages: 598
Release: 2016-08-25
Genre: Art
ISBN: 149680807X

Outsider art has exploded onto the international art scene, gaining widespread attention for its startling originality and visual power. As an expression of raw creativity, outsider art remains associated with self-taught visionaries, psychiatric patients, trance mediums, eccentric outcasts, and unschooled artistic geniuses who create things outside of mainstream artistic trends and styles. Outsider Art: Visionary Worlds and Trauma provides a comprehensive guide through the contested terrain of outsider art and the related domains of art brut, visionary art, “art of the insane,” and folk art. The book examines the history and primary issues of the field as well as explores the intersection between culture and individual creativity that is at the very heart of outsider art definitions and debates. Daniel Wojcik's interdisciplinary study challenges prevailing assumptions about the idiosyncratic status of outsider artists. This wide-ranging investigation of the art and lives of those labeled outsiders focuses on the ways that personal tragedies and suffering have inspired the art-making process. In some cases, trauma has triggered a creative transformation that has helped artists confront otherwise overwhelming life events. Additionally, Wojcik's study illustrates how vernacular traditions, religious worldviews, ethnic heritage, and popular culture have influenced such art. With its detailed consideration of personal motivations, cultural milieu, and the potentially therapeutic aspects of art making, this volume provides a deeper understanding of the artistic impulse and human creativity.