"I want to replace Western
art with that of the jungle, the lavatory, the mental institution--l'art brut".
Thus spake Jean Dubuffet, who coined the term "l'art brut" for the art he
was collecting in the 1940's, and, later, which he himself began to create
in the 1950's. Other well-known artists whose works are considered to be art
brut are Adolf Wolfli, who is regarded as the original and the greatest of
the "psychotic" artists, and, more recently, Simon Rodia, who spent thirty
years building the famous Watts Towers, a project that was once regarded as
a public eyesore, but which has now been purchased by the State of California
for several million dollars.
Art brut is known as
Outsider Art in North America, and contemporary versions of the same phenomenon
elsewhere are called Visionary Art, Intuitive Art, Grassroots Art, and Contemporary
Folk Art. Art brut, or Outsider Art, can be appreciated only within the context
of what it is not; and this requires a knowledge of those artists and critics
within the traditions of Western art history who began looking outside to
other cultures for inspiration.
Paul Gauguin, who looked
to the peasant life in France, and later to the islands of the Caribbean and
Polynesia in the 1880's, is regarded by many as the first artist who was on
the right track. He claimed that the "primitive" arts provided a nourishment
that the "civilized" arts could no longer do. And we can add Henri Rousseau
here, who is credited as founding the tradition of Naive art. Later came the Fauvists,
Cubists, Expressionists, and Surrealists. These movements took inspiration
in one way or another from the arts of Africa and Oceania. But more importantly
perhaps, what they all have in common with contemporary art brut and outsider
art is that they all identify a common enemy, which art brut artist Roger
Cardinal describes as..."that force which feeds on blind obedience, fidelity
to stereotypes, the denial of spontaneity, the repression of individualism
and experimentation." The "enemy" in question here is academy art, and gallery-
controlled avant garde.
Cardinal points out
that art brut, or Outsider Art, cannot be "defined" or held down by any rigid
dogma since it is about freedom, immediacy, and authenticity. It can only
be known by what it is not, and must be seen in that context with a comprehensive
knowledge of what has gone before. However, we can add to the contemporary
version of Outsider Art such phenomena as the psychoanalysis practice introduced
by Freud, who used doodles and sketches by patients as a means to explore
deeper levels of consciousness, and the art of the Surrealists and the Dadaists.
Just as the Surrealists reacted against scientific excess, and the Dadaist
against institutionalized art, so too Outsider Art is considered--by its proponents,
at least--to be the contemporary antidote to our over-industrialized, complicated,
stressful, and uncertain lives.
The artistic end product
of Outsider Art can probably best be described as a new kind of Primitivism,
in that both genres seek out naive art as a purer form of creation and expression.
The criteria for inclusion in this new categorization are many and varied;
some of them have been carried forward from the days of Primitivism, and other,
newer ones have been added more recently. The major difference between Primitivism
and Outsider Art is that while the former looked to the cultural artifacts
of Africa, Amerindia, and Polynesia for inspiration, the latter looks inside
the individual psyche for creative energy.
The similarities between
earlier art forms and Outsider Art are the childlike appearance of the art-work,
the signature style of the artist, and choice of subject matter-- usually
themes or obsessions concerning the everyday, or sometimes inner, life of
the artist. Among the new forms
of art brut is that art produced in the psychiatric institution. Art work
produced by the institutionalized, particularly art by the mentally disturbed,
has always had a fascination for art connoisseurs. There has always been the
belief, in some circles, that madness and genius are very closely connected.
What we call madness is simply our own misapprehension of genius, some would
claim.
Indeed, art brut is now regarded as having actually turned the tables here:
It is now art brut, according to French critic Laurent Danchin, art brut reveals
the limitations of psychiatry. Encouraged in the 1960's by such psychiatrists
as R.D.Laing, art by the institutionalized was regarded both as a therapeutic
exercise for the patient, and as material for psychoanalysis by the professional.
But the doodling, drawing, painting and sculpture of those under psychiatric
care has now been widely embraced by Outsider Art officianados. And while
it is still regarded as providing valuable clues and insights into the causes--and
therefore possible treatments--of mental disturbances, Outsider Art critics
evaluate and appreciate this work simply as art.
Another new Outsider
Art category is folk art. The history of art has mostly regarded folk art
as obsessive, crude and untutored, and therefore unworthy of serious attention
or consideration. Outsider Art includes folk art as a perfectly legitimate
domain for the production of art. Its very untutoredness is read as a mark
of distinction and value.
Finally, art produced
by the physically challenged is now regarded as more worthy of serious consideration
than it has been previously afforded. While there have always been physically
challenged artists in the mainstream--most recently Christy Brown, the Dubliner
whose artistic life was represented in the film My Left Foot--Outsider Art
takes a much wider and more inclusive view of this work. Recent examinations
of art-work by the blind, for example, have discovered startlingly beautiful
representations of private, inner worlds. Outsider Art is,
therefore, eccentric in the literal sense: It comes from outside of the centre,
from the margins and from the edges of society, from the confined spaces of
hospitals and institutions, and from the wide open spaces of the imagination
in full, untutored and unfettered flight.
Danchin, who is also
a historian of the art brut movement, claims that the real strength of the
art is its ability to constantly reintroduce elements of the human subconscious
into an art world that he, and many along with him, sees as degenerating into
insignificance because of its continuing evaluations based on technical precision
and academy standards. He describes art brut as "...a bridge between two worlds--on
one hand, traditions that have been half-forgotten and, on the other, the
first steps towards new dimensions--"
