William's post has some merit - especially the bottom line: "Outsider visual art exists because of those who see it as almost free money."
The dealer in the visual arts performs a much different role than the publisher in literature or the producer in theater and recorded music. All those other business people have to serve a much larger and anonymous market of customers -- while the dealer only has to serve a few - although that few must be well known and the higher the status the better. "Outsider art" does seem to be an ambitious dealer's wet dream --but I fail to see how it's much different from the category of "contemporary art" -- where the distinction between art and garbage can only be determined by the dealer-guided marketplace. (i.e. no other standards need apply) Which is not to say that the successful dealer has not earned his money through hard work, taking risks, and making good or lucky decisions. I go to an "outsider art fair" at the Merchandise Mart every year in Chicago -- and mostly the prices there are very low. So to cover expenses, the volume must be high, even if the margin of profit is astronomical. The real money gets made in contemporary art -- where the only distinction between the $14 million dollar Basquiat or Dubuffet and the worthless scribblings of a child is the location of the wall on which it's been hung. (BTW --thanks to the omniscience of Wikipedia - I've just learned that: "Dubuffet coined the term Art Brut (outsider art) for art produced by non-professionals working outside aesthetic norms, such as art by mental patients, prisoners, and children") Miller's post has some merit. I think he is right about outsider art not having a clear identity in some arts fields. Why? It's necessary to first of all admit that the market has much to do with our identity of various genres in the arts. In most arts fields, the multiple genres have well established markets. They are not outsider but are in fact insider niche genres. In the visual arts, the "mainstream" has been so thoroughly identified as including its own antagonists that it's difficult to find any outsider work. But it exists on the supposedly completely non-institutional art practiced by those who have no knowledge of art, art history, the art market, and all the sophisticated production/reception strategies of the art world. Nothing really comparable exists in the other arts, probably because they are performative and, as said, a developed genre rooted in at least basic skills exists for every likely possibility. In the visual arts, whoever can scribble can be titled an artist and no skill sets are mandatory. But above this I think it's the market forces that keep alive an artificial outsider concept in the visual arts. Even as I write this there are folks combing the backcountry in Alabama and Utah looking for the hermit loner who paints and draws or assembles scrap metal, etc. not for art, which the hermit has never heard of, but for some spiritual purpose or because it's just fun. There have always been such people, and their hunters, but it is especially difficult today to be convinced that such people exist anywhere. The goal of finding these outsider non-artists is money. Big money. Huge amounts of money, mostly without any investment costs. Go find a fellow who paints pictures of his chickens with their manure on feed sacks because he wants to immortalize their souls and but it for cans of chewing tobacco and you have a chance to make serious money if you market the stuff to the right people in mainstream galleries. You can't do that with a "discovered" art school artist, no matter how nutty the work is. That artist already knows about the market and how to play it. The other thing about outsider art is the political correctness of the term. There used to be art of the insane, naive art, primitive art, untrained art, and maybe a few more. But now it's all outsider art, which is a cynical way of saying it can be insider art. One thin g all this stuff has in common is a quirky chaqrm. But it almost never grows or develops in artistic ways. Insane art is all the same once you get past its novelty and weirdness. Outsider art is all alike in many ways, quirky distortion, obsessive patterning, and Bible cliches. Bottom line: Outsider visual art exists because of those who see it as almost free money. WC _____________________________________________________________ Domain Registration - Click Here http://thirdpartyoffers.netzero.net/TGL2211/fc/Ioyw6ijmVlOgD6bW9JBfljyQWYPlQI MNXd1JxsvfbJlP3R7nsv0oII/?count=1234567890
