Outsider Art: Spontaneous Alternatives Colin Rhodes (2000)Image courtesy of
Simply by (one's) discussion of a book, a movie, or an artwork, one advertises its existence; a thought encapsulated in the expression "any press is good press." The job of the critic, through this "promotion", is to either say, "Seek this work out" or "If you see this work, run the other way."
In this case, our object of attention is Outsider Art: Spontaneous Alternatives (2000), a book by Colin Rhodes. While this book is very well researched, the amount of artists the author knows of is astounding, and it's a good introduction to Art Brut, Jean Dubuffet, and several kinds of practitioners, I'm holding up a sign that says "Wrong Way." "Outsider Art," as I want people to understand it, is a label applied to artwork made by artists who are circumstantially ignorant of "mainstream" artistic practices but who are, and here's the important part, mentally capable. The title of this book should have been Relics of Psychological Imbalance: Mental Illness and Art.
Cloisonné de théâtre Aloise Corbaz, 1950/51 Instead of considering Rhodes' book a proper survey of Outsider Art and its history, I'm giving it the more fitting description: "Use of a far too inclusive history of Outsider Art to argue for the inseparability of insanity and Modern Art. " And that thesis is only true when the book is coherent (which lasts as long as he discusses Jean Dubuffet, Art Brut, and asylum artists). It quickly descends into endless lists of far too many diverse histories including child art, asylum art, prison art, "alternative world" art, spiritual (or mediumistic) art, folk art, obsessive environmental art, "primitive" art, and in a move that truly seems tacked on for P.C. reasons, culturally relative art. I'm sure the folk artists and "self-taught visionaries" would love to be grouped in with pedophiles and psychopaths.
Anyway, when I cracked this book open, I didn't expect to see sentences like, "The exploration of connections between art and insanity by modern artists began..." If you're looking for "art" (marks representative of psychological delusion) by the mentally ill, then pick this book up because it's a thorough collection of such people, along with outstanding reproductions of their work (both in quality and quantity), to potentially explore elsewhere. But if you, like me, think associations between asylum-dwellers (Gustan Duf) and gem-like artists who labor over their work without any expectation of audience through perspectives uninfluenced by art history (Kane Kwei) are offensive, stay clear.
Mercedes Benz-Shaped Coffin Kane Kwei, 1989Image courtesy of http://bushofghosts.wmg.com/images/MercedesCoffin_large.jpg
-------------------------------------------
The views expressed are solely those of the blogger and do not reflect the views of
the University of the Arts.
1 comment:
Last Thursday's Wall Street Journal had a front page article about the Outsider Art Fair in New York and what it takes to be included. After commenting on what won't get you invited to the art fair (knowledge of the workings of the art market) the writer comments on what is required: "Admission to the outsider club takes something else altogether that trained artists needn't advertise: an eligible life story."
The article goes on to cite admission to a mental hospital as comparable to say growing up poor, or living on the streets as far as outsider status is concerned. In the past I understood the outsider label to refer solely to people who had no formal art training, it seems now that a more stringent definition of being an outsider socially is being applied. So it seems that mental illness or imbalance has come to be an acknowledged (by some) qualification of outsiderness.
Post a Comment