Section I: Historicizing Outsider Art

Essentially ahistorical, it is challenging to trace the origins and evolution of outsider art with the same precision employed in general art-historical practice. Viewed in contrast to the institutionalized aesthetic and intellectual principles that serve as impetus for the great bulk of the Western canon since the advent of the Renaissance, it becomes understandable why few early examples of outsider art survive today. Born of obscurity and primarily intended for the satisfaction of private urges rather than the dictates of the academy, so much of this art has never seen the light of day. That which was not destroyed on the basis of its perceived worthlessness and pathological deviance remained for the most part unnoticed and undocumented, left over time to litter the periphery of acceptable visual production.

Bearing this in mind, it is still possible to cobble together a loose outline of outsider art, delineating its relationship to the mainstream and articulating the emergence of a critical recognition and response that has sought to legitimize the phenomenon of the outsider as a subject meriting scholarship, preservation and respect. In doing so, perhaps the most effective and accessible organizational approach to compiling a relative history of outsider art is to undertake an examination of how the work of outsiders— of those creating beyond the conventions of their time— has been received and processed by the mainstream, noting in particular the changes in attitude that have ultimately informed the way in which outsider art is viewed today.

Posted by admin on April 6th, 2007 | Filed in outsider art | Comment now »

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