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  • Outside In: National 2012

    Outside In: National 2012

    Outside In‘s National Exhibition will take place between the 27th October 2012 and 3rd February 2013 at Pallant House Gallery in Chichester. Outside In work to provide a platform for artists who are marginalised from sociaty due to a number of reasons including mental health issues, social circumstances and disability. The deadline for applications for the exhibition is Friday 20th July 2012, and there is no submission fee for entering the competition. There will be six award winners who will receive a month long solo exhibition in the Studio at Pallant House.

    Accompanying the Outside In: National will be other exhibitions based around the idea of ‘outsider’ art. Pallant House will be exhibiting the work of Jean Dubuffet, who originally coined the term Art Brut. He was a painter and sculptor as well as a collector of ‘outsider’ art in the early 20th century. As an artist, Dubuffet disregarded traditional ideals of beauty and instead focused on what he believed to be a more authentic and ‘raw’ approach to creating art. The exhibition at Pallant House will focus on the L’Horloupe series within Dubuffet’s collection.

    Also accompanying Outside In: National will be an exhibition of Pat Douthwaite’s prints. Douthwaite is considered both a ‘self-taught’ and ‘outsider’ artist after starting her life as a dancer and aspiring actress. After giving up the stage to focus on her art, Douthwaite was encouraged not to attend art school by fellow Scottish artist J. D. Ferguson. Lacking a permanent base, Douthwaite worked from numerous cities and countries including England, Scotland, North Africa, India and South America, but eventually struggled with physical illness after an attack she suffered in Edinburgh. Douthwaite exhibited regularly within the art world, but her work and its unique style was not considered to fit into the artistic conventions of her day. She was uninterested in becoming caught up in the art world, instead being comfortable being linked to ‘outsider’ art.

    Douthwaite’s early work was heavily influenced by the work of Dubuffet – something which connects the two exhibitions at Pallant House which are accompanying Outside In: National this coming Autumn/Winter.

    This series of exhibitions is something not to be missed by those interested in the work of ‘outsider’ artists. For more information on the exhibitions, and to keep up to date when information is released about them, please visit Outside In‘s website.

  • Safety Net of Sky: 30th March – 27th May

    Safety Net of Sky: 30th March – 27th May

     

    The Koestler Trust is currently running an exhibition curated by young people from the Liverpool Youth Offending Service, with help from professional curators.

    The exhibition includes paintings, drawings and sculpture as well as creative writing which were selected from entried to the 2011 Koestler Awards.

    The exhibition is taking place at the World Museum on William Brown Street in Liverpool.

    For more information you can visit: The Koestler Trust or the World Museum

  • What is Outsider?

    What is Outsider?

    Pascal Maissoneuve

    I have recently been conducting some further research into the way we display and interpret exhibitions of Outsider Art or work by Marginalised Artists. This research has raised a few questions for me that I thought might be interesting to include in the blog.

    I have been reading Lyle Rexer’s ‘How to Look at Outsider Art’, in which the author himself questions what really counts as Outsider Art. The term itself is so broad and covers so many different bases that more often than not we struggle to aptly define it at all. Rexer provides numerous definitions throughout the introduction and first chapter of the book; a chapter entitled ‘Art without Artists’. He quite correctly claims that Outsider Art “unlike the isms… does not refer to the art but to the status of the people who make it.”[1] He adds that the term has “become a catchall phrase for everything that is ostensibly raw, untutored and irrational in art.”[2]

    The traditional ‘movement’ of Outsider Art (if we can even call it a movement at all; apparently lacking precursors and emerging mainly as a ‘hindsight’ movement) includes artists from a whole host of different backgrounds. We have the ‘legendary’ Outsiders who include Henry Darger, Richard Dadd and Adolf Wolfli, alongside less well known artists who have been labelled within this category. But, Rexer argues – as I do to some extent – what really defines all of these artists? What is it about them or their work that enables us to group them all within this category of Outsider Art?

    Certainly, within the traditional art historical canon, movements such as Impressionism, Expressionism, and Surrealism to name a few, are defined by the work – not the artist. They are defined by a distinct style, a certain brushstroke, or bold colours. Outsider Art is much more difficult to define in this way. It is based on the artist – their psychological state, their political standing or their social exclusion. As Rexer notes: “in art galleries and in most exhibitions of self-taught and outsider art, one is likely to see everything from early America advertising signs and Native American artifacts to Haitian Voudou flags, religious art from the South, and works by people in severe mental distress.”[3]

    Is it right, then, to group artists such as the academically trained Dadd together with the very private Darger? Darger, as one example, certainly did not actively want anyone to see his work, or even discuss it. Is Dadd only grouped within this category of Outsider Art because of his battle with Schizophrenia which resulted in him murdering his own father? After all, before the onset of his Schizophrenia, he was a professionally trained artist, who travelled the world to advance his skills. We could argue that artists such as Paul Cezanne, Gustave Courbet and Eduard Manet were Outsider Artists of their time. They did not fit into any previously existing art historical movement, and their work challenged pre-existing ideas of colour, subject matter and style. Rexer explains that the group of artists who exhibited at the Salon des Refuses of 1863 after announcing a break with tradition could be described as Outsiders – they were consciously working outside of the art historical norm.

    Giuseppe Archimboldo’s work of still lifes using fruit and vegetables are world-renowned, but similar work by Pascal Maisonneuve using shells to create faces is labelled as Outsider Art. How do we explain this divide, this difference? It has crossed my mind that perhaps the work of celebrated Outsider Artists such as Darger and Wolfli might come to be accepted into an art historical movement within time. Perhaps Maisonneuve’s work might sit alongside Archimboldo’s in an exhibition celebrating still lifes – just as the work of the Impressionists now sits in the timeline of the progression of nineteenth century French painting, following the work of David and Ingres. Outsider Art seems to me to be a label that encompasses the work of artists whom we do not know how – or where – to put. It is a ‘movement’ (in the loosest sense of the term) that covers a huge expanse of time and a huge range of styles, subject matter and indeed history. To finish, I would like to use a thought-provoking quote by Rexer which highlights the complicated nature of using such a broad term: “many of these objects do share some common ground, but putting them into a very large suitcase called ‘self-taught’ or ‘outsider’ certainly makes them harder to appreciate.”[4]

    References:

    [1] Rexer, Lyle. How to Look at Outsider Art  (Harry N. Abrams Inc, 2005), p 12

    [2] Ibid, p 6

    [3] Ibid, p 10

    [4] Ibid, p 10

  • What’s On in the Outsider Art World – May 2012

    What’s On in the Outsider Art World – May 2012

     

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    Galerie Gugging, Austria

    Until 28th Oct 2012
    ‘August Walla Retrospective’

    Until 7th Oct 2012
    ‘Sexi-Blatt’
    An exhibition based on the theme of sexuality

    Mad Musee, Belgium

    Until 6th May 2012
    ‘Rumours’
    An exhibition that includes the work of Morton Bartlett, Lee Godie, Loulou and Miroslav Tichy

    The Arts Festival of North Norway, Norway

    24th June 2012
    ‘The World of Outsider Art’ at the Trondenes Historic Centre, Harstad Norway

    The Aprad Szenes-Vieira da Silva, Lisbon Portugal

    Until 23rd Sep 2012
    ‘Arte Bruta – Terra Incognita’
    Outsider Art from the collections of Richard Troger and Antonio Saint-Silvestre

    Portugese Association of Outsider Art, Lisbon Portugal

    Until 31st May 2012
    ‘Xico Nico, Sculptor’

    Intuit: The Center for Intuitive and  Outsider Art, Chicago

    Until 30th June 2012
    ‘Heaven and Hell’

    Bethlem Heritage, London

    13th June 2012 – 13th July 2012
    ‘Hollow Space and Outgrowth’
    “Artists from Bethlem Gallery respond to the historical and art collection in the Archives and Museum”

    Art et Marges Musee, Belgium

    10th Feb – 20th May 2012
    ‘La Fabuloserie: le fabuleux destin des Bourbonnais’

    Frist Center for Visual Arts, Tennessee

    24th Feb – 29th May 2012
    ‘Fairy Tales, Monsters and the Genetic Imagination’

  • Edward Burra (1905 – 1976) – Modern Connections

    Edward Burra (1905 – 1976) – Modern Connections

    Edward Burra, The Snack Bar (1930)

    Edward Burra, not exactly an ‘Outsider Artist’, never seemed to quite fit in to any particular art canon. After visiting the first solo exhibition of his work in 25 years at Pallant House Gallery in Chichester earlier this year, I could see connections with German Expressionism, Surrealism, and potentially Impressionism – connections which I will discuss in more detail later in this post. However, despite being named one of the most acclaimed modern British artists, his work is somewhat unknown to the majority.

    Working predominantly in watercolour, Burra’s work is unlike any other pieces found in this medium. He uses the paint to produce a bold, solid colour – a characteristic that made his work centre stage at Tate Britain’s recent ‘Watercolour’ exhibition. Burra’s work encompasses four main themes; the first being the almost voyeuristic depictions of prostitutes and drinkers, then there are his more macabre, surrealist works, then his landscapes and, finally, his theatre designs.

    His depictions of the Hollywood scene and life in Harlem – in which he represents drinkers, prostitutes and immigrants – are almost comparable to the work of early Impressionists working in Paris in the late nineteenth century. The voyeuristic, almost flaneur-like gaze of the artist represents the woes and tribulations of modern industrial life. Similarly to Eduard Manet and Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Burra plays the flaneur in these works, for example in his piece entitled The Snack Bar (1930), which depicts a prostitute in a café-bar. Comparable to Manet’s scenes of café-life, such as At a Corner Café-Concert (1878), Burra’s work unashamedly depicts working-class urban life. The idea of the flaneur, a theory highlighted in the work of Charles Baudelaire, is that the artist depicts fleeting moments in time; capturing everyday life on the canvas – or in Burra’s case, on paper.

    Burra’s work has already been compared by many to the work of the German Expressionists Otto Dix, George Grosz and Max Beckmann. The German Expressionists used their art to portray their discontent with the rapid modernisation and industrialisation that was taking place in Germany during the early twentieth-century. Similarly to Burra, they worked in bold, solid colour, with harsh lines and also depicted the turmoil and dissatisfaction that is often a companion to the loneliness of modern city life. Dix, Grosz and Beckmann, amongst other Expressionists, were not afraid to show the dark side of urban life; the back streets, the macabre and the poverty; subject matter that resulted in the their inclusion in the 1937 Degenerate Art exhibition in Munich.

    Despite the difficulty to place Burra within the traditional art historical canon, his work is definitely something to be celebrated. His use of watercolours can only be admired; from a distance, it is impossible to tell that his courageous use of colour is produced using this medium. His work shamelessly depicts the underworld of modern urban life; a theme that is iconic and almost representative of works produced during the early twentieth-century in Western cities.

    The Edward Burra Exhibition, which began at Pallant House Gallery, Chichester earlier this year is now touring. You can see this exhibition at the Djanogly Art Gallery until the 27th of May 2012.

  • Review and Summary: A. L. Kennedy’s Art and Madness, BBC Radio 3

    On Sunday 22nd April, BBC Radio 3 aired a programme by writer A. L. Kennedy on the supposed links between art and madness. In this post, I want to briefly summarise Kennedy’s views within the programme and discuss some of the questions she raises.

    “Losing one’s mind is a negative, terrifying experience, freeing it can be nerve-wracking too, but also exhilarating, beautiful and eloquent – for everyone.”

    Kennedy begins by noting that we often link art and madness – we don’t link, for example, art and sport, or art and banking. As a female writer, she claims that ‘mad dead Sylvia Plath’ and ‘mad dead Virginia Woolf’ are her role models. As humans, we are ‘obsessed’ by ‘mad, dead’ icons – and, to some extent, this is a myth that can trivialise madness and marginalise art.

    But, what constitutes madness? Dorothy Rowe, Psychologist and writer, claims that even those with a ‘healthy mind’ cannot directly see reality. It is something which is impossible for us as human beings. We can only believe the ideas our brain gives us. Reality is in fact, she claims, a story we tell ourselves; how then, do we know what is, really is?

    Further into the programme, Kennedy takes us as the listener on a journey to a hotel. She is suffering from dizziness, nausea and anxiety – something, she claims, that might suggest to the hotel receptionist that she is ‘stoned’. She explains that that wants to tell the receptionist that she is a professional – a writer, but suddenly, she is embarrassed and ashamed of her profession. To claim she is a writer, in this country in particular, will only confirm beliefs of extremity, eccentricity and madness. She asks, rather pivotally, has a long term exposure to her art harmed her?

    Lisa Appignanesi, a British writer, states that there are many people self-diagnosed and professionally diagnosed with a mental illness who do not ‘create’ in some sense – therefore, there cannot be a direct link between art and ‘madness’. Why is it then, that we insist that all artists experience ‘bad times’?

    Shakespeare’s portrayals of madness are interesting to note. For example, Hamlet is the “sanest guy” acting out in an insane situation and Lady MacBeth is maddened by destruction not construction – or creation. Shakespeare, then, could be said to focus on the insanity of the world, rather than the insanity of the artist.

    The individual, it is claimed, is most defined as individual in extreme states. Madness, then, is an extreme expression of individuality.

    The modern era of art embraced madness; something which could be portrayed as somewhat insulting to those who wake up every morning with no choice. Involuntary mental distress means that our guesses are wrong; we become anxious as a result of this, and then fearful – “we feel ourselves falling apart.” Often, literature on the connection between art and madness beautifies the experience of mentall illness. Psychiatrist R. D Laing once said that Schizophrenia was a type of poetry.

    Kennedy looks at the work of William Kurelek. She asks if we choose to associated madness with artso that we don’t have to associate it with ourselves.

    The connection that is usually made is one which states that the ‘mad’ artist creates more, or perhaps only creates at times when they are experiencing mental distress. This however, is evidentally not the case. Van Gogh, for example, could not paint during times of deep distress and Virginia Woolf would often only experience breakdowns after she had written.

    Being an artist can often create another identity for someone who is suffering from a mental illness. They become an ‘artist’ as opposed to an ‘unwell person’. The creation of art can be therapeutic – not, as Kennedy claims, in the sense of Art Therapy, but in terms of the fact that producing art for many people makes them feel better. Does this not then undermine the myth if art is in fact a cure for madness?

    Being an artist in itself can create turmoil and breakdowns. Performance artist Bobby Baker has claimed that the struggle of working so many hours for an unstable income led to her breakdown. Artists are often idolised, but not paid well for this idolisation. Baker would paint watercolours of her standing on the edge of a cliff during her darkest moments. Her daughter later revealed that she found these images comforting; to her it meant her mother was using an outlet for her feelings that didn’t involve actually going and standing on the edge of a cliff. We all have ideas and thoughts that are unacceptable, and artists ‘speak’ these thoughts. Baker describes the ‘nutty’ artist, who represents what we are scared to see in ourselves.

    Being an artist is not just an occupation, often, it is what makes a person who they are. This can become all consuming. But we, as art viewers, can learn to live and understand ourselves through the work of artists. Art has the ability to help us deal with our lives; it goes on transforming, and it goes on being ‘new’. The ability to create, Kennedy claims, is not something restricted to the ‘mad’, it is in fact something for everyone. Through art we can change the story – we can see the light instead of the dark. It can help us be here, and be alive.

    The BBC programme can be found at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01ghb93

  • Design and Display: The Halle Saint Pierre, Paris

    Design and Display: The Halle Saint Pierre, Paris

    Completely conversely to the bright walls of the typical contemporary art gallery exhibition, the temporary exhibition at the Halle Saint Pierre in Paris was shrouded in darkness. This exhibition is called ‘Banditi dell’arte’ (which Google Translate tells me means ‘Bandits of the Art’) and is the first exhibition in France of Italian Outsider Art.

    At the bottom of the hill that leads up to the Sacre Coeur and Montmartre; one of my favourite Parisian places, sits the Halle Saint Pierre, an institution which celebrates the work of Outsider Artists. One of my interests regarding Outsider Art is how, often, the work of marginalised artists is displayed so differently to the work of ‘non-marginalised’ contemporary artists. This is what I was thinking about during my visit to Banditi dell’arte, and therefore, what this blog post will be focusing on.

    On entering, the exhibition space was very, very dark. Black walls. Spot lit works. It was incredibly different to what you might expect when visiting a ‘white cube’ contemporary exhibition. Many of the works, I found, were by ‘anonymous’ artists – and many of the works in fact were also nameless – something, perhaps, one would not come across in the commercial, contemporary art world. The works were grouped by artist, with a brief biography (only in French) and each artist almost had their own ‘mini-exhibition’; four or five works on display and their own corner or section of the room.

    There seemed to me to be no chronological order or narrative to the overall exhibition – perhaps just the fact that they were Italian Outsider Artists. There was also no set format for the display of the works, it was almost as if someone different had curated each artist’s ‘mini-exhibition’. Also, I found there were a considerable amount of photographs representing installations (rather than actually having the installations on display within the exhibition).

    Upstairs, in their more permanent exhibition room, I found the obligatory white walls. Similarly to the temporary exhibition space, this area also designated a space to each artist; they had their own sections again displaying about four or five works each.

    In terms of the technology used within the exhibition, any notebooks or doodle-books that had once belonged to the artists were displayed on screens that provided a slideshow of the pages. I found this quite a nice touch, as the actual book was under a glass case, but you were still able to explore the work inside of it.

    Something I noticed, in both exhibition spaces in fact, was that because of the partitions and dividers that separated each artist’s ‘mini-exhibition’, you were never just looking at one piece in isolation. Whilst looking at one artist’s work, you could be peering through the gaps at another’s at the same time.

    I would like to do some more research into the differences that are perhaps apparent between the exhibiting of marginalised artists work and that of ‘non-marginalised’ contemporary works. For now, I hope you enjoy this post. Sorry it is quite brief, I just wanted to get down everything I had written on a scrap of paper during my visit before I lost it!

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    Banditi dell’arte: 23rd March 2012 – 6th January 2013, Halle Saint Pierre, Paris

    Don’t forget to follow me on Twitter: @kd_outsiderart

  • *GUEST POST* The Berlin Wall East Side Gallery by Lizzie Davey

    *GUEST POST* The Berlin Wall East Side Gallery by Lizzie Davey

    Many thanks to Lizzie Davey for this post on the Berlin Wall East Side Gallery. Read Lizzie’s blog for more posts about travel and culture: Wanderful World.

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    At 1.3 kilometres long and featuring 106 paintings by international artists, the East Side Gallery is the largest open air gallery in the world. It stands as a memorial for freedom at a time when the future of Germany was unstable. The use of art here has become an expression of the turbulent times a separated and then unified Germany faced; the old and the new Berlin. In 1989, when the wall came down, hundreds of international artists collected at the east side which was once untouchable, and turned it into a colourful, exquisite memorial, providing a new future and place for the wall in Berlin. The paintings exhibited here express a new beginning and put forward new, euphoric hopes for the city; hopes that were formed when the wall came down.

    When visiting the East Side Gallery last year, I was amazed by the diversity of imagery on display. However, all seemed to convey a similar theme; freedom. The array of colour displayed in such a large format can be overwhelming, but once I reached the end I wanted more. Remembering that the gallery is actually exhibited on the wall, the wall that was once a huge part of German history is amazing and will enforce the struggle Germany faced during this time for years to come.

    Some critics state that the wall is in such bad condition now that the original artworks are almost undecipherable. I, however, think that it has evolved with the times, creating a portal where citizens of Berlin can express their feelings via an artistic platform. In some ways, the graffiti overlaying the original paintings only enhances the wall, showing how the visions and outlooks of the people have changed over time. Each piece was unique and brilliant in its own way, including the newly added graffiti that has accumulated. The memorial was created to express freedom, and surely this is evident in the way the wall appears today as an almost interactive gallery.    

    Again, thanks to Lizzie for this post. Don’t forget to check out her blog: Wanderful World.

  • Just Visiting 2: Samuel Beckett

  • What’s On in the Outsider Art World.. March/April 2012

    What’s On in the Outsider Art World.. March/April 2012

    Image(Image: Robin Ironside at Pallant House, Chichester)

    Bethlem Heritage, South London UK (www.bethlemheritage.org.uk)

    8th – 30th March 2012
    ‘There is Good in Us’

    An exhibition of Geroge Harding’s work – “The work encourages people to look at ‘us’ in a way that is celebratory, unconventional and can teach us something about different ways of being.”

    Pallant House, Chichester UK (www.pallant.org.uk)

    28th Feb – 22nd April 2012
    ‘Robin Ironside: Neo-Romantic Visionary’

    Galerie Gugging, Austria (www.gugging.org)

    Until 22nd April 2012
    ‘Inschriftierungen’

    Galerie Miyawaki, Kyoto Japan (www.galerie-miyawaki.com)

    March 2012
    Exhibition on the work of Outsider Artist Hans Krusi

    Art et Marges Musee, Belgium (www.artetmarges.be)

    10th Feb – 20th May 2012
    ‘La Fabuloserie: le fabuleux destin des Bourbonnais’

    Museum Im Lagerhaus, Switzerland (www.museumimlagerhaus.ch)

    Until 11th March 2012
    ‘Hidden Treasures from Swiss Psychiatry II: Encounters’

    Frist Center for Visual Arts, Tennessee (www.fristcenter.org)

    24th Feb – 29th May 2012
    ‘Fairy Tales, Monsters and the Genetic Imagination’