The ‘Aberrant stammerings’ of Art Brut
Am currently reading the Raw Vision Outsider Art Sourcebook, a fascinating volume detailing some of the most notable examples of 'Outsider Art' (paintings, drawings, sculpture etc.) and 'Visionary Environments' (such as Ferdinand Cheval's Le Palais Idéal).
Regarding the term 'Outsider Art', Wikipedia offers this by way of (natty) definition:
The term Outsider Art was coined by art critic Roger Cardinal in 1972 as an English synonym for Art Brut (which literally translates as "Raw Art" or "Rough Art"), a label created by French artist Jean Dubuffet to describe art created outside the boundaries of official culture; Dubuffet focused particularly on art by insane asylum inmates.
While Dubuffet's term is quite specific, the English term "Outsider Art" is often applied more broadly, to include certain self-taught or Naïve art makers who were never institutionalized. Typically, those labeled as Outsider Artists have little or no contact with the institutions of the mainstream art world and they often employ unique materials or fabrication techniques. Much Outsider Art illustrates extreme mental states, unconventional ideas, or elaborate fantasy worlds.1
The appeal of 'Outsider Art' owes much (at least for me) to its vivid, often delirious, immediacy and intensity, but it undoubtedly also offers a stirring, and refreshing, counterpoint to the lauded (and often banal) artefacts of 'high culture'. In an age of (apparently) increased homogenisation, where "key words for the creative" are 'demographics', 'target audiences', 'marketability' etc., Outsider Art/Art Brut (whatever you want to call it)2 raises a tattered flag for 'pure', essential creativity…art for its own sake.3
Jean Dubuffet puts the area into clear focus in a manner far more eloquently than I could manage, so we'll let him have the final word:
In our time as in other times, certain ways of expression prevail; through fashion or circumstances, certain forms of art receive attention and consideration to the exclusion of others. Ultimately, these artforms are quite wrongly regarded as the only justifiable ones, the only possible ones. Thus is hollowed out a path henceforth followed by all artists, who lose consciousness of its special character, and lose sight of many other admissible paths. So strong is the power of attraction of this narrow rut which forms the domain of cultural art that productions proceeding along other paths are not even perceived, as if a sort of ultrasonics. They are thrown into some condescending category like children's art, primitive art or the art of the insane, all of which implies the quite false notion of maladroit, or even aberrant stammerings at the beginning of a road leading to cultural art.
The Collection de l'Art Brut, began in 1945, is comprised of works created by persons foreign to the cultural milieu and protected from its influences. The authors of these works have for the most part a rudimentary education, while in some cases – for example, through loss of memory or a discordant mental disposition – they have succeeded in freeing themselves from cultural magnetisation and in rediscovering a fecund ingeniousness. Contrary to the classical idea, we believe that creative artistic forces, far from being the privilege of exceptional individuals, abound in everyone, but that they are commonly restrained, debased or disguised due to worries about social conformity and deference to received myths.
Jean Dubuffet, Make Way for Incivism, 1967.4
- "Outsider Art" – Wikipedia [back]
- "A firm distinction should be made between 'art brut' and what is known as 'naif art'. The naif or primitive painters remain within the mainstream of painting proper, even if they fail ingenuously to practise its style. However, they accept its subjects, technique (generally oils) and even its values, because they hope for public, if not official recognition. 'Art brut' artists, on the other hand, make up their own techniques, often with new means and materials and they create their works for their own use, as a kind of private theatre. They choose subjects which are often enigmatic and they do not care about the good opinion of others, even keeping their work secret." – [LINK] [back]
- Although, of course, the very qualities that make it 'outside' in the first place, are qualities that can be seized upon and promoted by the masters of art marketing [back]
- Cited in Raw Vision Outsider Art Sourcebook. UK: Raw Vision, 2002. pg. 14. [back]
February 16, 2006
7 responses to The ‘Aberrant stammerings’ of Art Brut
Didn’t Jarvis Cocker do a very interesting tour of outsider art installations for the beeb at some stage? Twas mighty stuff.
I also remember the Grotto of the Redemption which Alvin Straight puttered past on his John Deere tractor lawnmower in David Lynch’s The Straight Story.
It’s actually a series of grottos conceived by a Father Dobberstein, a German priest. According to the wikipeida “[h]is method was to set fancy rocks and gems into concrete”. While Dobberstein died in 1954, construction continues to this day. Pretty outsider I think, but difficult because while it certainly has many of the characteristics of outsider art, it is sponsored by the RC church, a noted patron of much of history’s finest insider art.
It is also noteworthy in this regard that the total value of the rocks and minerals in the grotto is $4,308,000.
Here’s a link or two:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grotto_of_the_Redemption
for a great picture check out
http://www.westbendiowa.com/
He did indeed, it was called Journeys Into The Outside With Jarvis Cocker.
It’s hard to know where to ‘locate’ grottos as artworks…
The outsider aesthetic is clearly present in some examples, but the sensibility (such as it is) is not. Having said that, it’s hard not to view something like Brigid’s Well as a mass, spontaneous work of outsider art created with ‘found objects’.
Perhaps ‘folk art’ is a better term though, if, indeed, it doesn’t muddy the water to talk about such shrines as ‘art’ at all…
Was amused to find that the westbendiowa site refers to The Straight Story as a Disney film! No mention of that nasty Mr. Lynch…
i’m thinking of releasing an album of ‘outsider’ music
it will consist largely of me bawling my head off and banging a spoon off the table, table off the floor etc
RAAAAaaa laaaAAAAA Waghhhh radai radi radi llllllAAAAAaa WAhh – as you see i won’t be bound by bourgoise notions of musicality or lyricism neither. straight from the heart, no talent, no training and no skill – pure authentic like. I think my mother may have identified my unique outsider insight when i was but a child.
‘outside’ she’d say, ‘if you’re going to make that kind of racket, you can do it outside.’
and you can, you really can
Londoner,
That contribution, in itself, was so bourgeois it could almost have been written by Kevin Myers.
It could, it really could.
i write looking out my office window at the interplay between two of Wren’s post great-fire churches, the llyod’s exchange building (still crazy, after all these years), the soaring power of the ‘gherkin’ and a jumble of ninetheenth and early twentieth century insurance houses. Compared in particular to the aristocrat developed westend and jerrybuilt eastend of London, the City streetscape is a physical testament to the enduring bourgeois concerns for excellence, innovation and light government. yet i can’t help but feel that when fústar uses the term bourgeois he does so as a signifier of negative values?
hmm, some of the slouchers around here could do with something more solid than jelly inside their shirts.
should you not be at work?
Copernicus, the image of a typing ape in dungarees will remain with me for the rest of my days – think PG tips with a Dexy’s Mignight Runners jingle.
If the BPLO are looking for a Bez character they should look no further.