Outsider Art Sourcebook

by John Maizels

Outsider Art and Folk Art have been gaining increasing attention over the past two decades. They have been described as the 'hidden face of contemporary art'. Once marginalised and seen very much as a minority interest, these forms of art are now the subject of important international exhibitions and even have specially dedicated museums on both sides of the Atlantic. Hidden, secret, or reclusive this art may have been, but today its large international following stands as a testimony to its unique power and individuality. This second and enlarged edition of the Outsider Art Sourcebook is the first international publication to act as a comprehensive guide through this fascinating field. It leads its readers to make their own discoveries, showing where collections and exhibitions of Folk Art and Outsider Art can be found and how to visit the most sensational of the visionary environments self-built architecture and large scale sculpture gardens. With detailed full page entries on 130 artists and 50 visionary environments, this guide encompasses a full view of the most important areas of a field that still has discoveries to make. Students, scholars and art followers are introduced to the principal theorists of Art Brut, guided through important literature on the subject and given an introduction the most important artists and the most stunning visionary environments. With additional listings of specialist art galleries, museums and collections, publications, organisations and relevant websites, the Outsider Art Sourcebook is essential reading for enthusiasts and beginners alike.

Genres: Art, Nonfiction, Art History

296 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 2009

Reviews

[Ed · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked this up on a whim on a recent trip to New York. Essentially it is an all-purpose guide to Outsider Art, an umbrella term which also encompasses Art Brut and Folk Art. Outsider Art is basically any Art that is produced outside of the conventional, mainstream Art world. This includes art produced by psychiatric patients, spiritual and religious artists, self-taught artists, prisoners and so on. It is more than cult or underground artists, however. These are artists who existed entirely outside of the normal channels for creating and distributing art; who may not have even been aware of the existence of such channels; who in many cases did not self-identify as artists or were not aware that what they were doing could be classified as art; who in general made little or no money from their work; who often took up art at a late age; and who had no or very little formal training.

The book itself is divided into handy sections, including a chronology and history of the field, a bibliography, and a guide to the varous museums where Outsider Art can be found. The meat of the book, however, are the bibliographies of the various artists, each accompanied by an example of their work, and a section entitled Visionary Environments, which is a sequence of potted descriptions and images of various built art environments from around the world.

Most of the bibliographies are fascinating and cover a wide range of personalities, mediums and approaches, from Morton Bartlett's (1909-1992) 13 lifelike dolls, undiscovered till after his death, to the spiritual medium Madge Gill's (1882-1961) intensely detailed black pen on card drawings, to Down's Syndrome sufferer Judith Scott's (1943-2005) abstract yarn sculptures, to the incredibly fantastical paintings of Eugene von Bruenchenhein (1910-1983). Even with just the very small sample of artwork in the book, the images and descriptions that really burrowed their way into my psyche and I actually had to stop reading it immediately before sleeping because of the strangely vivid dreams it was inducing. Highly inspirational.

The only downside for me with bibliographies is the inclusion of so many 20th century, principally American, religious artists (I'd estimate fully a quarter), all of whom seem to merge into each other after a time as their backgrounds are so similar and whose work, from the examples given, perhaps suffers from over-literalism. I just can't maintain my interest in yet another artist who converted to evangelicalism in their 60s and proceeded to create mad paintings espousing their beliefs. Great in theory perhaps, but it does all seem to be of a type. However, given that this is survey of the whole field, it makes sense that they are all included.

The real standout part of the book is the section on Visionary Environments. A lot of these places I had no idea existed - helpfully the book contains instructions on how to get to most of them. Some of these are just incredible, environments that in some cases people dedicated their entire lives to constructing. My personal favourites: Dr Evermor's "Forevertron", a massive steel spaceship in Wisconsin; "Las Pozas", an insane flowing sculpture of stairs that lead nowhere and pseudo-religious columns, located in a remote Mexican jungle, constructed by an eccentric English Aristocrat; and best of all Edward Leedskalnin's "Coral Castle" in Florida, a collection of monoliths designed to resemble an Egyptian temple - Leedskalnin constructed the entire thing himself with homemade tools, even though it includes stones that weighed upwards of 30 tons. To this day, engineers and architects are mystified as to how he managed to accomplish it, although Leedskalnin himself claimed to have (re)invented a new type of magnetism.

My rating here is fairly arbitrary because I'm really no expert on Visual Art, least of all this particular area. So I can't tell whether this is a fair survey of the field, whether or not it leaves out crucial artists, and so on, and I can well-imagine the kind of controversies that probably surround the whole field, controversies that I'm not qualified to get into in this sort of a review. Bearing all that in mind, I would say that for anyone who has any interest in Outsider Art and is looking for a primer then this is ideal.