I think the term "outsider art" is demeaning.

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Van Gogh could be considered "outsider art", but we don't classify him as such...same as Dali, Duchamp, Bacon, etc..etc...

― Ashley Andel, Monday, 7 October 2002 04:42 (twenty-three years ago)

none of those could be considered "outsider art" for the mere fact that they - at some time - attempted to sell their work via the machinery of the established art world of their times.

― jess (dubplatestyle), Monday, 7 October 2002 04:48 (twenty-three years ago)

is that what the difference is?

― donna (donna), Monday, 7 October 2002 04:50 (twenty-three years ago)

They lived in environments in which going to public school and learning the basics about the Masters -- even if you forgot the minute you left the classroom -- wasn't standard, though. It's more unlikely now to have an actual interest in art and yet be an "outsider" in the sense of having no intellectual connection to art history/art community (for lack of a less half-assed way of putting it).

Not that I like the term. You don't see "outsider literature" talked about much, possibly because most of the "insiders" (the ones who pick up the MFAs in Creative Writing, write for their college literary mags, etc.) don't end up doing anything except teaching.

― Tep (ktepi), Monday, 7 October 2002 04:51 (twenty-three years ago)

I've always understood the term to mean someone who simply didn't go through the usual ropes of art school, participation in the gallery subculture, etc. -- i.e., art produced "outside the box" of today's art world, by individuals who are not associated with it until such time as they're "discovered."

― Tep (ktepi), Monday, 7 October 2002 04:53 (twenty-three years ago)

I thought it was someone who was a bit nuts/was maybe more into art as a craft than whatever else. Why does Duchamp qualify?

― Andrew Thames (Andrew Thames), Monday, 7 October 2002 05:04 (twenty-three years ago)

you have to qualify?

― ducklingmonster, Monday, 7 October 2002 05:06 (twenty-three years ago)

To Ashley above I mean

― Andrew Thames (Andrew Thames), Monday, 7 October 2002 05:07 (twenty-three years ago)

Any art majors want to give us a ruling? :) (I paint but didn't take any art classes beyond the minimum requirements ... I don't think that'd make me an outsider under either definition, though.)

outsider.art.org implies the definition of "the work of untrained artists, many of whom were rural African-Americans, eccentrics, isolates, compulsive visionaries, or the mentally ill," which covers both, actually (and would include me, I guess. The untrained part, dammit.)

― Tep (ktepi), Monday, 7 October 2002 05:12 (twenty-three years ago)

most of the "insiders" (the ones who pick up the MFAs in Creative Writing, write for their college literary mags, etc.) don't end up doing anything except teaching.

Hey! I resemble that remark. Seriously though, there is a depressing amount of insularity in the writing world. This is most obvious by the "I'll scratch your back if you'll scratch mine" that goes on in publications and reviews. But (!) most professors I've had in writing have not been hiding in academia their entire lives. (Also, I think the whole homogenization slam on writing programs is a load of shit, but that's another thread.)

― bnw (bnw), Monday, 7 October 2002 05:13 (twenty-three years ago)

it doesnt make sense to me

― ducklingmonster, Monday, 7 October 2002 05:21 (twenty-three years ago)

I was slamming as a former member of said programs ;) Just a little self-deprecating humor to get me through the day (I've also taught writing, ineffectively.)

There's a lot to be learned from an MFA program, and the biggest benefit is simply the time it buys you to work on your writing without neglecting something else -- but when I was cruising for graduate programs, they were marketed as "job training," really. Pick up our degree and head out on the road to published fame. They were rarely able to produce either alumni or faculty with significant credits outside the subset of publishing which is subsidized by universities (at my local university, the one prof who did have a novel published by a non-university publisher had only taught there for one year -- left to write full-time, and agreed to keep his name on the faculty rolls even though he hasn't taught a class in the decade since.)

― Tep (ktepi), Monday, 7 October 2002 05:22 (twenty-three years ago)

outsider art = self-taught art, right?

the art critic's version of 'flyover'

I've always liked it; it seems more honest than 'folk art' which seems to imply that the artist is part of an indigenous tradition (certainly not the case with Henry Darger, Achilles Rizzoli, etc.)

― James Blount (James Blount), Monday, 7 October 2002 05:28 (twenty-three years ago)

Hey did you read that issue of Art in America too?

― Andrew Thames (Andrew Thames), Monday, 7 October 2002 05:32 (twenty-three years ago)

Jess, Wesley Willis sells his CD's in HMV, yet he is still considered "outsider art". Same with Beefheart, Eugene Chadbourne, etc...

Duchamp qualifies because he produced a urinal as an art piece. If that isn't "out of the box", what is? Same with all the avant garde!
Down with this distorted categorical mess, it's all universal!

― Ashley Andel, Monday, 7 October 2002 05:34 (twenty-three years ago)

But it was an intellectual prank, I thought. I didn't know Beefheart was considered "outside", good for him.

― Andrew Thames (Andrew Thames), Monday, 7 October 2002 05:37 (twenty-three years ago)

Andrew - No, (if you were Anthony I'd think you were mocking me). I like weirdos, on bad days I identify with Darger (not Rizzoli so much, no mother issues here). Also, I live in Athens and Darger gets much play among the Elephant 6 crowd, predictably.

― James Blount (James Blount), Monday, 7 October 2002 05:40 (twenty-three years ago)

Not-so-ironically, Duchamp's urinal is the granddaddy of a huge portion of the products of the gallery subculture now -- he hopped out of the box and they built a new one around him. (Like Einstein, etc., etc., insert Motivational Speakerdrone ramble about "paradigms" here.)

― Tep (ktepi), Monday, 7 October 2002 05:41 (twenty-three years ago)

I find that pop culture has generally painted a picture of a stoned, psychotic, dumb (remember Homer Simpson and his art?) and irrelevant outsider artist. The term must be discontinued, along with a lot of other terms.

― Ashley Andel, Monday, 7 October 2002 05:42 (twenty-three years ago)

I wasn't mocking don't worry, I have this issue w/Darger/Rizzoli in it and it's very, very good. I've read both articles a bunch of times, it's where I heard of both, it just seemed like an odd coincidence as I've heard little of Rizzoli otherwise, despite his stuff being very interesting.

― Andrew Thames (Andrew Thames), Monday, 7 October 2002 05:44 (twenty-three years ago)

Ashley - I think it depends on if you supposedly know that what you are doing is out of the box. Wesley Willis & the Shaggs make the cut, Cap'n Beefheart doesn't (although he's in the Irwin Chusid book, so what do I know). The lines are a bit more clearly drawn in art, where the high-low dynamic is very much in play, but there's clearly some crossover (see Daniel Johnston's or Wesley Willis' drawings). I love outsider art and incorrect music, but I love Dogme 95 too. Label an aesthetic 'democratic' and I'm halfway sold already.

― James Blount (James Blount), Monday, 7 October 2002 05:45 (twenty-three years ago)

So, the capitally distorted, powder arsed and mathematical art world is nothing more than a big, theoretical box maker!

― Ashley Andel, Monday, 7 October 2002 05:46 (twenty-three years ago)

yeah "intellectual connection to art" alert. so can outsider art be written by the "in" ? and what if they tell you your outsider? its all very confusing

― ducklingmonster, Monday, 7 October 2002 05:46 (twenty-three years ago)

please continue in my "Fear Of Math" thread.

― Ashley Andel, Monday, 7 October 2002 05:49 (twenty-three years ago)

The intellectual connection is assumed in the training -- if you're trained by an art school, arts program, etc., you're learning the history, not just raw technique. If you grow up with some kind of connection to the gallery scene, ditto. So by the definition on that webpage ("untrained" being the operative word), no, outsider art can't be produced by an insider. It's the artist that determines the outsider-ness, not the art itself.

― Tep (ktepi), Monday, 7 October 2002 05:54 (twenty-three years ago)

What if an outsider artist is practically FORCE-FED all the techniques when he/she tries to find solace/nurturing in an art related environment?

I think art schools should be more catering to those who need to find their own way of creating. I think the idea of marking art is ludicrous.

― Ashley Andel, Monday, 7 October 2002 06:03 (twenty-three years ago)

what if you draw a hand but the fingers are rubbish?

― mark s (mark s), Monday, 7 October 2002 07:15 (twenty-three years ago)

Then you just drew a palm with some weird blobs on it.

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Monday, 7 October 2002 07:17 (twenty-three years ago)

Then you just drew a turkey! (American kindergarteners know what I'm talking about)

― James Blount (James Blount), Monday, 7 October 2002 07:27 (twenty-three years ago)

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