What do you think?
Art brut
Book by Michel Thevoz
- GenresArtNonfictionArt History
179 pages, Hardcover
First published October 31, 1995
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
Read
June 5, 2026This is a really excellent book on "art brut," aka outsider art. A pity that Goodreads has no information on it, but this is a true archival find. A very thorough presentation that mostly approaches the domain through a psychoanalytic angle, appropriate to the subject of art largely produced by madmen (although as Breton said, the art of madmen ought to be considered a separate category). As far as I understand it, "art brut" is a specific coinage that means essentially the same thing as outsider art, but frames it in a more virtuous light. Art brut, as one of the theses of this book goes, is true and uninhibited artistic production. Artistic production that does not see itself as art, in fact. The author draws repeated parallels with tinkering / magic systems in so-called primitive societies. There is also reference to the "repetition compulsion," which Freud understood to be a means of gaining or exercising power. Given that the overwhelming majority of outsider art is produced by inmates and people whose lives are otherwise characterized by brutality and violence, it may be that the compulsive tinkering with materials is a means of gaining control.
I've been to the naive art museum in Croatia I think twice. Naive art is typically produced by an uneducated peasantry, but whereas outsider artists have no conception of "cultural" art, the naive artist aims at culture but misses the mark and produces something entirely different. There are other parallels: with children's art, which like outsider art functions as a libidinal production, where the materials are like extensions of the body and the artist draws because it feels good. There is also some discussion early on of automatic art and surrealism, which tries to access some realm of disinhibition. But surrealism is very much a product of culture.
Something that the author stresses is that we should think of outsider art is "production" rather than "expression." I really appreciated how defensive the author is of the subject(s) he's writing about. He really goes on at length about how terribly the institutions and some individual doctors treated some of these people; about how psychoanalysis is a normative discourse that is ultimately violent; about how a cultural artist and an outsider artist are shades different. He valorizes outsider art---and this is what is meant by the term "art brut," raw art---as the kind of production that cultural art aims at but cannot achieve. Outsider art is pure uninhibited anarchy, the product of an individual, whereas cultural art has the burden of responding to the entire history of art.
One of the more psychedelic and intriguing concepts that I got out of this book is the idea that, first, because these outsider artists don't really conceive of their activity as "art," whatever drive compels them to paint or sculpt may very well be manifest in activities that we normies can't perceive. Imagine a musical composer who composes with frequencies that we can't hear. But then the author goes in a truly Lovecraftian direction: imagine that, through careful observation of an outsider artist's activity, you become aware of the full extent of their practise. Outsider art can potentially retrain one's perceptive faculties, deadened by culture, to become aware of things that one previously was not able to perceive. You become aware of a whole substrate of existence. Knowledge changes consciousness. If you look at a particular body of work look enough, then it changes how you perceive the rest of the world, specifically as a form of unlearning. Read the Necronomicon and become maddened. Freaky!
One of my interests in outsider art was trying to figure out what about this type of work makes it so disturbing. When I see outsider art, often I find it unsettling, as the author says: indeed, I would say it's uncanny in the full Freudian sense. I am not so stupid as to make simple value judgements about whether an object of history is "good" or "bad," but my interest in this domain is not motivated by a sense of "liking" outsider art. I find it disturbing, I'm intrigued by that sensation and I want to know what causes it. I'm intrigued by this type of work, but I don't "condone" it necessarily and obviously one cannot simply choose to be an outsider artist. Dubuffet, the famous inventor and first canonizer of art brut, mastered the aesthetics, but he was part of the cultural world. I'm more like that---my current work plays on outsider aesthetics, yes, but I have no illusions about where I stand (within culture).
My working thesis is that outsider art is a form of "lumpen" culture. It's akin to homelessness. In his conclusion, the author of this book says (a) that the "tentacular spread" of mass media has a psychologically normalizing effect, which means that outsider art is endangered; and (b) that he wants a future where artists are more anarchic. I, probably being more judgemental and normative than the author, who is really impressively open-minded, want to say that outsider art is like a form of detritus necessarily produced by class society / psychological normativity. Civilization might endeavour to minimize it, in the same way that it minimizes the presence of homelessness (ostensibly, at least), but like the lumpen proletariat, like the reserve army of the unemployed, these things cannot really be completely undone. They are produced necessarily by the how society is structured. On the one hand, examination of the wriggling mass the lies beneath the upturned stone of culture can illuminate, it's important work, we must be brave enough to face our shadow-selves, etc etc; but on the other hand, notwithstanding the fact that I personally find it somewhat unsavoury and pitiable, the fact is that the lumpen proletariat is not a revolutionary agent.
On that note, the author begins and ends the book with the question of whether or not outsider art can have a history. The question is motivated by the fact that outsider artists are, by the definition of the phenomenon, individual agents who produce work that is untouched by culturation. So whereas for Wolfflin, pictures respond more to the history of pictures than to direct observation, this cannot be the case for an outsider artist. There is no trajectory or development in the way that we have narrativized cultural art history. Outsider art doesn't have a history.
I really want to put this work into conversation with Lukacs and Adorno. "History and Class Consciousness." Historical Materialism. The proletariat is a revolutionary agent in virtue of the fact that it has a history. The lumpen proletariat is not a revolutionary agent, not least of all because it doesn't have a history.
I've been to the naive art museum in Croatia I think twice. Naive art is typically produced by an uneducated peasantry, but whereas outsider artists have no conception of "cultural" art, the naive artist aims at culture but misses the mark and produces something entirely different. There are other parallels: with children's art, which like outsider art functions as a libidinal production, where the materials are like extensions of the body and the artist draws because it feels good. There is also some discussion early on of automatic art and surrealism, which tries to access some realm of disinhibition. But surrealism is very much a product of culture.
Something that the author stresses is that we should think of outsider art is "production" rather than "expression." I really appreciated how defensive the author is of the subject(s) he's writing about. He really goes on at length about how terribly the institutions and some individual doctors treated some of these people; about how psychoanalysis is a normative discourse that is ultimately violent; about how a cultural artist and an outsider artist are shades different. He valorizes outsider art---and this is what is meant by the term "art brut," raw art---as the kind of production that cultural art aims at but cannot achieve. Outsider art is pure uninhibited anarchy, the product of an individual, whereas cultural art has the burden of responding to the entire history of art.
One of the more psychedelic and intriguing concepts that I got out of this book is the idea that, first, because these outsider artists don't really conceive of their activity as "art," whatever drive compels them to paint or sculpt may very well be manifest in activities that we normies can't perceive. Imagine a musical composer who composes with frequencies that we can't hear. But then the author goes in a truly Lovecraftian direction: imagine that, through careful observation of an outsider artist's activity, you become aware of the full extent of their practise. Outsider art can potentially retrain one's perceptive faculties, deadened by culture, to become aware of things that one previously was not able to perceive. You become aware of a whole substrate of existence. Knowledge changes consciousness. If you look at a particular body of work look enough, then it changes how you perceive the rest of the world, specifically as a form of unlearning. Read the Necronomicon and become maddened. Freaky!
One of my interests in outsider art was trying to figure out what about this type of work makes it so disturbing. When I see outsider art, often I find it unsettling, as the author says: indeed, I would say it's uncanny in the full Freudian sense. I am not so stupid as to make simple value judgements about whether an object of history is "good" or "bad," but my interest in this domain is not motivated by a sense of "liking" outsider art. I find it disturbing, I'm intrigued by that sensation and I want to know what causes it. I'm intrigued by this type of work, but I don't "condone" it necessarily and obviously one cannot simply choose to be an outsider artist. Dubuffet, the famous inventor and first canonizer of art brut, mastered the aesthetics, but he was part of the cultural world. I'm more like that---my current work plays on outsider aesthetics, yes, but I have no illusions about where I stand (within culture).
My working thesis is that outsider art is a form of "lumpen" culture. It's akin to homelessness. In his conclusion, the author of this book says (a) that the "tentacular spread" of mass media has a psychologically normalizing effect, which means that outsider art is endangered; and (b) that he wants a future where artists are more anarchic. I, probably being more judgemental and normative than the author, who is really impressively open-minded, want to say that outsider art is like a form of detritus necessarily produced by class society / psychological normativity. Civilization might endeavour to minimize it, in the same way that it minimizes the presence of homelessness (ostensibly, at least), but like the lumpen proletariat, like the reserve army of the unemployed, these things cannot really be completely undone. They are produced necessarily by the how society is structured. On the one hand, examination of the wriggling mass the lies beneath the upturned stone of culture can illuminate, it's important work, we must be brave enough to face our shadow-selves, etc etc; but on the other hand, notwithstanding the fact that I personally find it somewhat unsavoury and pitiable, the fact is that the lumpen proletariat is not a revolutionary agent.
On that note, the author begins and ends the book with the question of whether or not outsider art can have a history. The question is motivated by the fact that outsider artists are, by the definition of the phenomenon, individual agents who produce work that is untouched by culturation. So whereas for Wolfflin, pictures respond more to the history of pictures than to direct observation, this cannot be the case for an outsider artist. There is no trajectory or development in the way that we have narrativized cultural art history. Outsider art doesn't have a history.
I really want to put this work into conversation with Lukacs and Adorno. "History and Class Consciousness." Historical Materialism. The proletariat is a revolutionary agent in virtue of the fact that it has a history. The lumpen proletariat is not a revolutionary agent, not least of all because it doesn't have a history.
November 1, 2019
He's a pretty good scholar on this stuff, but the selection could've been more expansive.
January 30, 2008
I love art brut. And this book is really well-organized; it's broken up into easy-to-swallow sections. If only the library hadn't figured out that I'd had it out two months too much (yikes, late fees)... one day I'll finish it.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews