one of the contributing galleries for 15 years — and to
show their work at her gallery as well as to purchase piec-
es that speak to her as a private collector.
Exhibitions of outsider art continue to be held locally
at Archival, on K VIE and at the Verge Center for the Arts,
which hosted a survey show of 35 years of SCN artwork
in 2014, as well as nationally at venues such as the Los
Angeles County Museum of Art and the annual Outsider
Art Fairs in New York and Paris. Yet questions about the
genre’s definition, popularity and marketability remain.
Some outsider artworks have fetched prices in the
tens of thousands of dollars on the national art scene, but
most sell for less than $100 when they’re hung on the wall
of a local gallery. Which figure is a more accurate ref lec-
tion of the value of outsider art? Is there any way to tell
when the genre itself is so hard to define?
When French artist Dubuffet started using the term
art brut, he was referring particularly to art done by those
on the outside of the established art scene, then primari-
ly patients at psychiatric hospitals and children. Art crit-
ic Cardinal broadened the definition when he attached
the word “outsider” to mean art done by someone who is
naïve — a child or patient — or self-taught.
Neath sees the term as perhaps too broad to do its
various subgenres justice. She sees five subgenres:
religious-fervor artwork (she cites famed outsider artist
Howard Finster, who claimed to be inspired by God to
spread the gospel through his art); prison art; children’s
art; artwork by the developmentally disabled; and art by
the legally insane.
For Liv Moe, founding director of Verge Center for the
Arts, the definition isn’t just overly broad, it’s downright
problematic.
“The cliché of outsider art being considered more
‘pure’ because it’s outside the mainstream fetishizes the
artists, which takes away their individuality,” says Moe.
When the term was first used in the 1970s and ’80s, she ex-
plains, it was to specify a previously nebulous genre full of
people operating on the fringe of the art establishment —
whether because they were self-taught, disabled or living
in rural areas and therefore not part of the conversation.
But over the years, a romanticism has taken hold that sees
these artists not as outsiders but as something akin to ar-
tistic unicorns.
“The concept [of art] that comes down to us through
academia is that we’re all contributing to a running
Good design
reflects community.
Great design
creates it.
HGA.com
May 2019 | comstocksmag.com
39