CONTEXTS AND THEMES: DRAFT/ LAYOUT/ QUOTES:
(These quotes do not have to be quoted
but can/ should be paraphrased/ citations used to back/ challenge my
opinions!!!)
Another point that should come up in the writing: how these artists
are professionalized, and whether it is a help or a hinderance. That is
essentially the main point of my whole essay…
HISTORIAL CONTEXT: when was Outsider Art defined? At what
point did the concept of insider/ outsider of Art become a thing? Can briefly
mention the Degenerate Exhibitions etc. How Outsider Art is a derogatory
category, in a short way
NOTE: Roger Cardinal
published Outsider Art in 1972- which gives historical indication to when the
term was coined.
· The term Outsider Art came about from DuBuffet’s/ Cardinals studies
of these people, but why did they choose to define these people by who they are
rather than what they do? Unlike other *art-groups* etc
·
Begin with some definitions of Outsider Art : DuBuffett
wanted to liberate the art from the stigma of psychiatric labels such as “art
of the insane”, therefore he created a non-psychiatric term to describe it… Many
psychiatrists, artists, art historians and art critics have further refined the
definition of outsider art. Ideally, outsider art is art created without the
influences of artistic culture (Simone Alter Muri)
· But if DuBuffet wanted to liberate these people, does it make
sense to continue to divide them from the art world on account of their
identities?
· Comparison to the Degenerate Exhbitions/
the exclusion of the Impressionists from the Salons (?), what does it mean to
create a gulf between one art and another? These were done to belittle those
sorts of art, but this is, in theory, showcasing and highlighting them. But is
it as empowering as some may believe?
·
To
apply the label of outsider to an artist on their behalf is to ghettoise them
within a narrow and unbending market not equipped to sustain professional
practices. (Hugh Nichols)
·
The
quality of being self-taught…connects their
varied social positions into a single
identity category…is their
lack, rather than their attributes, that defines them. (Gary Alan Fine)
I’M NOT SURE HOW
MUCH OF THE ABOVE SHOULD BE HERE OR IN THE INTRODUCTION
FETISHISING IDENTITY: identity/ personal lives become the focal
point of how people talk about Outsider Art
·
Self-taught
art is form of identity art in which the characteristics of the artists and
their life stories are a important as the formal features of the created
objects …….
o
These artists are categorised by means
of the definition of their identities as authentic in the production of
objects, unburdened by assumptions of strategic careerism or lofty
intellectualising. In this, in their outsider role, separate from images of a
corrupt elite, they are ostensibly ennobled in a form of identity politics- but
in this, perhaps they become noble savages with the colonialism that such a
troubling designation implies……..
o
Self-taught art, by its label and its
reference, ennobles the individual. That we admire the autochthonous artist,
the artist who allegedly stands outside the community, is revealing.
(Gary Alan Fine) At once we have this perceived sympathy for these *poor* artists,
and also admiration… ‘inspiration porn’?
PRESUMPTIONS OF ARTISTIC INTENTION: following the identity, critics may
assume things about the art due to the context of the artist
·
Such
artists
are
often
seen
as
practicing
within
a psychological or health framework — art therapy — in which art making is a method rather than a cultural form. Alternatively they are included in the dubious category of ‘outsider art’, whereby they become fetishised as practitioners allegedly operating beyond the despoiling influence of commercial or professional concerns.( Hugh Nichols)
FETISHISING METHODS: the fetishisation of AUTHENTICITY, and
how the art world looks jealousy on to those who work with only *selfish*
motivations, and how they try to recreate this
·
They are not only fetishized
by the art world but by the middle classes… Both outsider
and Native arts are viewed as exotic, mysterious, not easily accessible, and
something to be discovered. Moreover, they provide middle- and upper-class
American society access to a near but able notion of the past or a return to
values more closely associated with the natural world, away from pretentious
contemporary societal and historical art concerns (Dyani Reynolds White Hawk)
INTUITIVE EXPRESSION: how Outsider Artists work on only their
own accounts, without an education
