Conclusion
In making the case that outsider art is a distinctive aesthetic and cultural phenomenon worthy of academic appraisal I’ve emphasized the role of the mainstream and its organizations, and suggested that the shaping of outsider art’s history, as outlined in Section One, has ensured an authentic understanding of its intrinsic value. This said, it is my belief that those art museums whose missions allow the collection and exhibition of outsider art provide a model staging ground for the ongoing project of developing an appreciation for outsider art. Offering an ideal intersection of the public realm and the more hermetic world of the art academy, such museums are well positioned to engage in the exploration of outsider art’s meaning, importance, and historical development.
Rather than continue to marginalize outsider production as something altogether alien and wholly removed from the accepted canons of art history, it would be more beneficial to allow this perceived distance to illuminate the vast range of visual strategies available to, and employed in the artistic process. In this way outsider art, when integrated into the museum environment, possesses great power to affect the manner in which we look at art. Whereas neat classifications may influence our observations to the point of distraction from the uniqueness of separate artworks, outsider art, aptly described by Lyle Rexer as “those works that resolutely resist such invisibility by confounding our conceptual categories,†forces us to focus our gaze on the object, thereby acting as “a spur to aesthetic conscience†(Rexer 2005:170). By allowing outsider art into their galleries, museums and their constituencies gain a refreshed perspective, one that is able to see beyond the hegemony of art-historical assumptions and consider the specific intentions of a given object’s creator.
Once the decision is made by a museum to incorporate outsider art into its collection and exhibition activities, the institution must begin the process of strategizing interpretive methods by which to organize and contextualize outsider material. Beginning with a decision regarding the precise language to be used in didactic materials, museums must undergo a careful examination of the implications associated with critical terminologies. As discussed in Section Two, these are often misapplied to outsider art, with the result being an inaccurate attempt to impose inappropriate genealogies at best, and at the very worst, the perpetuation of offensive and oppressive stereotypes. In positing the term outsider art, I hope to provide a useful and agreeable alternative that serves both public understanding and the academic necessity of utilizing signifying language.
As for the way in which a museum chooses to interpret outsider art, Section Three may be used as a resource for exploring various curatorial approaches based on precedents set by past exhibitions. By extracting and articulating four dominant organizational tendencies prevalent throughout the history of institutional responses to outsider art, it is my hope that each will suit the particular needs of various curatorial methodologies. For those who are primarily concerned with underscoring the concept of outsider art for their audience, the proposed model of Biographical Emphasis will prove an effective strategy. Formal Emphasis, on the other hand, is a useful strategy for highlighting the aesthetic merits of outsider art while seamlessly incorporating it into the greater context of a given collection or exhibition. For museums wishing to adhere to more traditional art-historical organizations, Appropriative Emphasis seeks to accentuate the intellectual and aesthetic interchange between outsider art and mainstream examples. Finally, for anyone concerned with the far-reaching cultural implications of outsider production and the vernacular practices from which it springs, a methodology grounded in Patrimonial Emphasis provides a philosophical outlook premised on the preservation of culturally significant creations in deference to their specific social contexts.
Bearing in mind that the genesis of marginalized artistic production is far removed from the very concept of museums, it should not be assumed that museums are inherently antithetical to attempts at comprehending outsider art. In light of this, I strongly believe that museums should embrace the opportunity to openly examine those factors within academic tradition and public perception that create boundaries between the mainstream and its margins. In doing so they may continue the process of forging a formalized approach to outsider art, while at the same time exposing their audiences to the vast spectrum of imaginative creation.
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