Outsider art | Tate (2024)

FAQs

What is considered outsider art? ›

The art of children, psychiatric patients and prisoners who create art outside conventional structures of art training and art production is often categorised as outsider art. In 1964 the French artist Jean Dubuffet started to collect artworks he considered to be free from societal constraints.

It refers to art created outside the boundaries of culture. It is an art by the untutored geniuses who have received no formal training and have no right to be called artists. These artists are never institutionalised because of their unconventional ideas. They illustrate elaborate fantasy worlds.

FOLK ART/ CONTEMPORARY FOLK ART

In contemporary terms, Folk Art can cover anything from chain-saw animals to hub-cap buildings as well as the work of artists that would easily fall into the realm of Outsider Art. (examples: Sam Doyle, William Hawkins, William Edmondson, Mose Tolliver).

Though the origins and true definition of outsider art are varied, French painter Jean Dubuffet is commonly accepted as the movement's founding figure. In the 1940s, Dubuffet began collecting works of art made in unusual contexts by artists such as Heinrich Anton Müller and Aloïse Corbaz.

Outsider art is art made by self-taught individuals who are untrained and untutored in the traditional arts with typically little or no contact with the conventions of the art worlds. The term outsider art was coined in 1972 as the title of a book by art critic Roger Cardinal.

: art produced by untrained or naïve artists (such as children or psychiatric patients) who are not part of the mainstream art tradition. Small objects and furnishings by self-taught artists like Mr. Norton have come to be known as "outsider art." Patricia Leigh Brown, New York Times, 3 Jan.

The house's inaugural sale for Outsider and Vernacular Art in 2016 immediately broke the highest record for the category with William Edmondson's Boxer (1936) sculpture fetching a hammer price of $785,000.

It is often associated with mental illness or trauma, and its creators are sometimes referred to as “outsiders” in a broader sense. Outsider art, on the other hand, is a broader term that encompasses not only raw art but also other forms of art created outside of the mainstream, such as folk art and self-taught art.

Abstract style art is generally considered cool and edgy. Abstraction in artwork creates non-defined subject matter, where rules are broken, thus leaving us with edgy art like no other.

Yoko Ono at Tate Modern: a closer look at 'the world's most famous unknown artist'

Is outsider art valuable? ›

Outsider art is important because it changes what we understand “art”—and the individuals who create it—to be. There's value in things that are different and not standard. They show us new ways of looking at things and redefine what we thought was possible.

In fact, Outsider Art had been conceived strictly as a study of art brut and was largely based upon the private art collection of the French artist and theorist Jean Dubuffet, now established as a public museum in Switzerland.

If you go through high school without belonging to any particular group — you're not a jock, a nerd, or an artist, for example — you might feel like an outsider. Having a brand new job can also put you in the position of being an outsider, especially if you have no experience in the profession.

They're in a community. Very simple, if you look at the definition of outsider art. "Insider" would be someone with training in arts, or an artist having art connections while doing their art. Most notable arts are done this way.

Visionary environments include large-scale environments or architectural projects created by Outsider Artists, such as Simon Rodia's Watts Towers, SP Dinsmoor's Garden of Eden, Ferdinand Cheval's Palais Idéal, and Nek Chand's Rock Garden.

An outsider is someone who is not accepted by a particular group, or who feels that they do not belong in it. Malone, a cop, felt as much an outsider as any of them.