The Front Door is Locked
From CPS_INVITATION TO EDIT
2016
When I paint these images I look down onto the scene that I am no longer inside. The locations are now only accessible to me through my memories of them, and what happens with the paint on the glass surface results from a sense of inescapable dualism: I am both on the inside and the outside of this. I know that technically I can’t perfectly reproduce anything; these images are in many ways far removed from the makings of machines. They fail in their reproduction, the perspective is wrong, I can’t quite remember what shape the windows were. In creating these naïve images I open up the scene and the memory for everyone else, the hazy dreamlike aesthetics might remind you of somewhere you didn’t know you had been to.
Yet at the same time these places have their own narratives and their own significance for me, I can tell you their stories but you will never be able to see what I see and there’s nothing I can do about it. There is a certain distance that is created, albeit not necessarily intentionally, through working in this way. These images simultaneously pull you in and push you out, all you can do is to stand outside and look through the window.
‘In our own time worlds have opened up which not everybody can see into, although they too are part of nature. Perhaps it's really true that only children, madmen and savages see into them.’ (1)
The secret inner world of the artist has been perhaps most noticeably encouraged and commended through the creation of specific genres to draw attention to those who would otherwise be overlooked in the art world. Works created by those on the supposed fringes of official culture that might be described as ‘folk art’, ‘art brut’, ‘visionary art’, ‘naïve art’ or ‘art of the mentally ill’ would today be considered under the umbrella term of ‘Outsider Art’; in essence, taking the model of the supposed ‘Inside’ and forming the ‘Outside’ based on its theoretical shortcomings.
Through the attempted externalisation of inner worlds my practice has always latently dealt with the dialectic of insider/outsider, and my experiences of occupying both positions in not only my artistic work but my personal life in relation to mental illness has meant that the structures and generalisations of this genre have never quite warranted my acceptance.
The problematic classification of ‘Outsider Art’ is one that I feel I can no longer avoid. For many years it was an aspirational model for how I wanted to work – I was drawn to the raw aesthetic qualities of many ‘Outsider Art’ works and valued the way in which the artists looked at the world through the lens of their own ‘inner world’. The highly romantic notion of supposed authenticity within the organic and unadulterated image was an aim for my paintings that was ultimately unattainable. I cannot detach myself from my education, my knowledge, my value judgements, my technical training. My own personal investment in those with mental illness is not something to discuss here, but it has undoubtedly encouraged my immersion in this field and driven my research into the nature of this insider/outsider binary in regards to art created by the ‘mentally ill’ and the role that art production plays in their life. The grey area of mental illness and the issue of defining this is precarious in itself; as soon as assumptions are made and these artists are placed within an isolating category of art making, purely, it seems, for the benefit of the art market, there arises huge ethical implications which need to be challenged.
“To define something – indeed even to isolate it – is to damage it a good deal. It comes close to destroying it.” (2) These words were paradoxically written by the French artist Jean Dubuffet, who coined the term ‘art brut’ (trans. ‘raw art’ or ‘rough art’) in 1946 and consequently drew a line between artistic work created by the mentally ill and the entirety of the ‘art world’.
Dubuffet claimed that artists placed in the ‘art brut’ category were ‘unscathed by artistic culture, where mimicry plays little or no part (contrary to the activities of intellectuals). These artists derive everything… from their own depths, and not from the conventions of classical or fashionable art.’ (3)
There are a number of issues with this statement when it comes to assumptions made on artistic purity and immunity from mainstream culture; in the very least Dubuffet sets ‘art brut’ artists aside from supposed ‘intellectuals’ who are only defined as such in their reliance on ‘mimicry’. His negative construction of the work of academics puts the art of the mentally ill on a different level and supposes that the two spheres cannot be mixed. With the introduction of standardized arts education and the expansion of University arts departments in the US during the time of his writing (4), Dubuffet’s claims were perhaps formulated in light of these changes and, I would argue, with the aim to legitimise the aesthetic field that he was also working in with his paintings.
From this already problematic term, in 1972 the art critic Roger Cardinal decided to open up the genre to encompass a wider demographic of art producers who work outside of mainstream art circles. ‘Outsider Art’ thus came into fruition along with a statement on how to appropriately identify an ‘Outsider’ artist. According to Cardinal, ‘a paramount factor in the critical definition of the creative ‘Outsider’ is that he or she should be possessed of an expressive impulse and should then externalize that impulse in an unmonitored way which defies art-historical contextualization.’ (5) This is a broad claim; an ‘expressive impulse’ is surely what should, in some way, drive every artist in the first place, and what follows is arguably not possible. At the moment of their discovery by a curator or collector does an ‘Outsider Artist’ then cease to be so? How do these art producers operate completely under the radar and work outside any notion of art-historical context? Cardinal creates their art-historical context; they now work beneath the convention of ‘Outsider Art’ and owe their market reception to the establishment of this tradition. It could also be argued that many successful contemporary artists haven’t necessarily been through formal training, they don’t owe their achievements to the heritage of the art world or the following of art history, and yet they can certainly not be classified as an ‘Outsider Artist’.
On the other side of this, many universally renowned ‘Outsider’/ ‘art brut’ artists defy this definition by coming to the genre through undeniably academic backgrounds. Carl Frederik Hill studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Stockholm in 1871 and is now known for being one of Sweden’s most famous landscape painters. His lifelong mental illness and subsequent hospitalisation at the age of 28 made him ‘turn away from reality’ and instead paint ‘themes from ancient tales and religion, the symbol of death ever present.’ (6) He is featured in various ‘Outsider Art’ collections due to the work created at this point in his life, but can he be theoretically categorised as an ‘Outsider’ to the art world that he now continues to operate within even after his death?
There are dangerous repercussions of labelling in this way. When it comes to making claims on whether someone is ‘intellectual’ or not and when these negative assumptions are a key aspect of defining ‘Outsider Art’, I believe it is an oversight to force these guidelines on a vast selection of artists without acknowledging their backgrounds and experiences. By denying the creators of their individual voices and by placing them all together under the same categorical term, their unique qualities diminish and the very foundation upon which the genre was created collapses. Allegations cannot and should not be made on supposed ‘intellect’, indeed I would argue that a great deal of ‘Outsider Art’ that I have encountered is incredibly intellectual, albeit sometimes on a non-conventional scale. If these artists are now viewed as ‘Outsiders’, what does that then mean for the constitution of an ‘Insider’?
Romanticism saw madness as a privileged condition: the madman, unrestrained by reason or by social convention, was perceived as having access to profound truths. The Romantics emphasized subjectivity and individualism, and hailed the madman as a hero, voyaging to new planes of reality. (7)
The beauty within ‘Outsider Art’ has always been romantically linked with a search for supposed truth. Particularly in connection to the art of the mentally ill, there is a certain assumed originality that comes with having an eschewed vision of reality – a trait also historically associated with the vision of the artist.
There are tangible parallels that should be acknowledged between this romanticism of mental illness and the working life of the ‘Insider’ artist. In relation to arts education, Boris Groys’ ‘Education by Infection’ presents the breeding of mentality and outsider ideology as present in art institutions by stating: ‘Now, as ever before, education suspends the student in an environment that is meant to isolate him or her, to be exclusively a site of learning and analysis, of experimentation exempted from the outside world.’ (8) Here I cannot help but draw connections between Groys’ portrayal of art schools and the mental institution (and in turn the creation of patient artwork with the ‘art brut’/ ‘Outsider’ genre) through their solitary separation from the ‘outside world’. Both institutions create their own interiority, but are perceived as two very separate worlds in themselves.
As an MFA student within an established Art Academy, I supposedly should have the feeling of interiority within the art system to which ‘Outsider Art’ is outside, however this is not always the case. There is still a struggle to be noticed within the art world that you work towards, and everyone has to at some point start as an ‘Outsider’. Some students who operate within the constructed ‘inside’ do not necessarily strive towards this model, but even if they wanted to reject the ideologies of the internal system they become stuck in a Catch-22 - they cannot label themselves as ‘Outsiders’ as the label is always externally applied, and a lack of self-awareness is apparently an essential condition for a genuine ‘Outsider’.
The basic ‘Outsider’ identity is often what drives art production in the first place; surely the efforts we all make to legitimise our artistic practices within this already impossibly defined area of work should not be made even harder by having to prove yourself credible within an oxymoronic genre? As writer John Windsor states:
It isn’t easy being an outsider. Once elected, there are appearances to be kept up: the solitary lifestyle, the nutty habits, the freedom from artistic influences. Above all, indifference to earning money…In the end, the outsider’s surest way of proving his integrity is to be dead. (9)
This sense of supposed freedom from the drives and urgencies of the working art world seem to be a key aspect in distinguishing an ‘Outsider Artist’. They are meant to operate outside of ‘artistic influences’, they are exclusively autodidactic and their technical skills are self-taught. Meanwhile, within arts education we work with the knowledge of what has come before and have the constant potential influence of those around us. I cannot generalise, but would argue that despite this there are many cases of self-taught students within art schools, and indeed this is often encouraged. Certainly, there are tutors and technicians who are employed to help if required, however in many art school systems students are left to their own devices to develop ideas and skills independently; the freedom and non-conformity associated with ‘Outsider Art’ is promoted within institutionalised art education – students are alone in their own space to work in whatever way they choose.
However, when confronting the more specific area of mental illness within ‘Outsider Art’, these Romantic visions of freedom that viewers bring to their reception of the genre are utopian and largely artificial. As John MacGregor highlights, ‘The Romantic view of madness was seldom based on any real experience of the insane. It was a fantasy, a dream of madness as a treasure trove of the imagination free of reason and constraint.’ (10)
Western society has come a long way in its treatment of mental illness; with the closure of all major mental asylums and the introduction of key community ventures that aim to accept and rehabilitate those who have gone through psychiatric care, we are now moving towards a situation where mental illness is viewed as a natural and common part of human life. There is still a long way to go, but mental illness can no longer be viewed as a liberation; we know that for many it is an enslavement, an inescapable dislocating experience that would be short-sighted to link with these romantic ideologies of artistic and personal inhibition.
In my current research practice, my engagement with mental health institutions allows me to consider how societal labelling and preconceived judgements on artistic value affect not only the work created in these supposed ‘outsider’ communities but also within my own supposed ‘insider’ world. These often negative or unreasonable assumptions are unhelpful; they only add to the feelings of inaccessibility that are in many cases self-fabricated, and in turn alienate artists from potential working spaces that they could otherwise thrive in.
I have come to understand that the categorical term of ‘Outsider Art’ no longer makes any sense. In an art world where any boundaries constructed by the supposed ‘inside’ have been continuously pushed for hundreds of years, the use of any kind of terminology to distinguish artists based on a generalisation of their background is nothing less than discriminatory and elitist. Perhaps like Primitivism, Orientalism, Exoticism etc., ‘Outsider Art’ can now instead stand purely as a tradition; an old-fashioned means of making sense of difference.
Endnotes
1 Paul Klee, quoted in John M. MacGregor, The Discovery of the Art of the Insane. (Princeton: Princeton
2 Jean Dubuffet, “Notes for the Well Lettered” in Art in Theory 1900-2000; An Anthropology of Changing Ideas, ed. Charles Harrison and Paul Wood (Oxford: Blackwell, 1946).
3 Jean Dubuffet, “Art Brut in Preference to the Cultural Arts” trans. Paul Foss and Allen S. Weiss, in Art & Text 27 (1993), 33.
4 Deborah Solomon, "How to Succeed in Art", New York Times Magazine (June 27, 1999).
5 Roger Cardinal, Outsider Art (Connecticut: Praeger, 1972), 30.
6 Barbara Freeman, ‘Biographies of Outsider Artists’ in Parallel Visions ed. M. Tuchman and C S. Eliel (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992), 44.
7 Allan Beveridge, “A Disquieting Feeling of Strangeness?: The art of the mentally ill” Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, (94, November, 2001), pp. 595-99.
8 Boris Groys, “Education by Infection” in Art School (Propositions for the 21st Century) (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2009), 27.
9 John Windsor, ‘”Catch 22: The Case of Albert Louden”, Raw Vision 18 (Spring: 1997), 50.
10 John M MacGregor, The Discovery of the Art of the Insane, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989), 76.
From CPS_INVITATION TO EDIT
2016
When I paint these images I look down onto the scene that I am no longer inside. The locations are now only accessible to me through my memories of them, and what happens with the paint on the glass surface results from a sense of inescapable dualism: I am both on the inside and the outside of this. I know that technically I can’t perfectly reproduce anything; these images are in many ways far removed from the makings of machines. They fail in their reproduction, the perspective is wrong, I can’t quite remember what shape the windows were. In creating these naïve images I open up the scene and the memory for everyone else, the hazy dreamlike aesthetics might remind you of somewhere you didn’t know you had been to.
Yet at the same time these places have their own narratives and their own significance for me, I can tell you their stories but you will never be able to see what I see and there’s nothing I can do about it. There is a certain distance that is created, albeit not necessarily intentionally, through working in this way. These images simultaneously pull you in and push you out, all you can do is to stand outside and look through the window.
‘In our own time worlds have opened up which not everybody can see into, although they too are part of nature. Perhaps it's really true that only children, madmen and savages see into them.’ (1)
The secret inner world of the artist has been perhaps most noticeably encouraged and commended through the creation of specific genres to draw attention to those who would otherwise be overlooked in the art world. Works created by those on the supposed fringes of official culture that might be described as ‘folk art’, ‘art brut’, ‘visionary art’, ‘naïve art’ or ‘art of the mentally ill’ would today be considered under the umbrella term of ‘Outsider Art’; in essence, taking the model of the supposed ‘Inside’ and forming the ‘Outside’ based on its theoretical shortcomings.
Through the attempted externalisation of inner worlds my practice has always latently dealt with the dialectic of insider/outsider, and my experiences of occupying both positions in not only my artistic work but my personal life in relation to mental illness has meant that the structures and generalisations of this genre have never quite warranted my acceptance.
The problematic classification of ‘Outsider Art’ is one that I feel I can no longer avoid. For many years it was an aspirational model for how I wanted to work – I was drawn to the raw aesthetic qualities of many ‘Outsider Art’ works and valued the way in which the artists looked at the world through the lens of their own ‘inner world’. The highly romantic notion of supposed authenticity within the organic and unadulterated image was an aim for my paintings that was ultimately unattainable. I cannot detach myself from my education, my knowledge, my value judgements, my technical training. My own personal investment in those with mental illness is not something to discuss here, but it has undoubtedly encouraged my immersion in this field and driven my research into the nature of this insider/outsider binary in regards to art created by the ‘mentally ill’ and the role that art production plays in their life. The grey area of mental illness and the issue of defining this is precarious in itself; as soon as assumptions are made and these artists are placed within an isolating category of art making, purely, it seems, for the benefit of the art market, there arises huge ethical implications which need to be challenged.
“To define something – indeed even to isolate it – is to damage it a good deal. It comes close to destroying it.” (2) These words were paradoxically written by the French artist Jean Dubuffet, who coined the term ‘art brut’ (trans. ‘raw art’ or ‘rough art’) in 1946 and consequently drew a line between artistic work created by the mentally ill and the entirety of the ‘art world’.
Dubuffet claimed that artists placed in the ‘art brut’ category were ‘unscathed by artistic culture, where mimicry plays little or no part (contrary to the activities of intellectuals). These artists derive everything… from their own depths, and not from the conventions of classical or fashionable art.’ (3)
There are a number of issues with this statement when it comes to assumptions made on artistic purity and immunity from mainstream culture; in the very least Dubuffet sets ‘art brut’ artists aside from supposed ‘intellectuals’ who are only defined as such in their reliance on ‘mimicry’. His negative construction of the work of academics puts the art of the mentally ill on a different level and supposes that the two spheres cannot be mixed. With the introduction of standardized arts education and the expansion of University arts departments in the US during the time of his writing (4), Dubuffet’s claims were perhaps formulated in light of these changes and, I would argue, with the aim to legitimise the aesthetic field that he was also working in with his paintings.
From this already problematic term, in 1972 the art critic Roger Cardinal decided to open up the genre to encompass a wider demographic of art producers who work outside of mainstream art circles. ‘Outsider Art’ thus came into fruition along with a statement on how to appropriately identify an ‘Outsider’ artist. According to Cardinal, ‘a paramount factor in the critical definition of the creative ‘Outsider’ is that he or she should be possessed of an expressive impulse and should then externalize that impulse in an unmonitored way which defies art-historical contextualization.’ (5) This is a broad claim; an ‘expressive impulse’ is surely what should, in some way, drive every artist in the first place, and what follows is arguably not possible. At the moment of their discovery by a curator or collector does an ‘Outsider Artist’ then cease to be so? How do these art producers operate completely under the radar and work outside any notion of art-historical context? Cardinal creates their art-historical context; they now work beneath the convention of ‘Outsider Art’ and owe their market reception to the establishment of this tradition. It could also be argued that many successful contemporary artists haven’t necessarily been through formal training, they don’t owe their achievements to the heritage of the art world or the following of art history, and yet they can certainly not be classified as an ‘Outsider Artist’.
On the other side of this, many universally renowned ‘Outsider’/ ‘art brut’ artists defy this definition by coming to the genre through undeniably academic backgrounds. Carl Frederik Hill studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Stockholm in 1871 and is now known for being one of Sweden’s most famous landscape painters. His lifelong mental illness and subsequent hospitalisation at the age of 28 made him ‘turn away from reality’ and instead paint ‘themes from ancient tales and religion, the symbol of death ever present.’ (6) He is featured in various ‘Outsider Art’ collections due to the work created at this point in his life, but can he be theoretically categorised as an ‘Outsider’ to the art world that he now continues to operate within even after his death?
There are dangerous repercussions of labelling in this way. When it comes to making claims on whether someone is ‘intellectual’ or not and when these negative assumptions are a key aspect of defining ‘Outsider Art’, I believe it is an oversight to force these guidelines on a vast selection of artists without acknowledging their backgrounds and experiences. By denying the creators of their individual voices and by placing them all together under the same categorical term, their unique qualities diminish and the very foundation upon which the genre was created collapses. Allegations cannot and should not be made on supposed ‘intellect’, indeed I would argue that a great deal of ‘Outsider Art’ that I have encountered is incredibly intellectual, albeit sometimes on a non-conventional scale. If these artists are now viewed as ‘Outsiders’, what does that then mean for the constitution of an ‘Insider’?
Romanticism saw madness as a privileged condition: the madman, unrestrained by reason or by social convention, was perceived as having access to profound truths. The Romantics emphasized subjectivity and individualism, and hailed the madman as a hero, voyaging to new planes of reality. (7)
The beauty within ‘Outsider Art’ has always been romantically linked with a search for supposed truth. Particularly in connection to the art of the mentally ill, there is a certain assumed originality that comes with having an eschewed vision of reality – a trait also historically associated with the vision of the artist.
There are tangible parallels that should be acknowledged between this romanticism of mental illness and the working life of the ‘Insider’ artist. In relation to arts education, Boris Groys’ ‘Education by Infection’ presents the breeding of mentality and outsider ideology as present in art institutions by stating: ‘Now, as ever before, education suspends the student in an environment that is meant to isolate him or her, to be exclusively a site of learning and analysis, of experimentation exempted from the outside world.’ (8) Here I cannot help but draw connections between Groys’ portrayal of art schools and the mental institution (and in turn the creation of patient artwork with the ‘art brut’/ ‘Outsider’ genre) through their solitary separation from the ‘outside world’. Both institutions create their own interiority, but are perceived as two very separate worlds in themselves.
As an MFA student within an established Art Academy, I supposedly should have the feeling of interiority within the art system to which ‘Outsider Art’ is outside, however this is not always the case. There is still a struggle to be noticed within the art world that you work towards, and everyone has to at some point start as an ‘Outsider’. Some students who operate within the constructed ‘inside’ do not necessarily strive towards this model, but even if they wanted to reject the ideologies of the internal system they become stuck in a Catch-22 - they cannot label themselves as ‘Outsiders’ as the label is always externally applied, and a lack of self-awareness is apparently an essential condition for a genuine ‘Outsider’.
The basic ‘Outsider’ identity is often what drives art production in the first place; surely the efforts we all make to legitimise our artistic practices within this already impossibly defined area of work should not be made even harder by having to prove yourself credible within an oxymoronic genre? As writer John Windsor states:
It isn’t easy being an outsider. Once elected, there are appearances to be kept up: the solitary lifestyle, the nutty habits, the freedom from artistic influences. Above all, indifference to earning money…In the end, the outsider’s surest way of proving his integrity is to be dead. (9)
This sense of supposed freedom from the drives and urgencies of the working art world seem to be a key aspect in distinguishing an ‘Outsider Artist’. They are meant to operate outside of ‘artistic influences’, they are exclusively autodidactic and their technical skills are self-taught. Meanwhile, within arts education we work with the knowledge of what has come before and have the constant potential influence of those around us. I cannot generalise, but would argue that despite this there are many cases of self-taught students within art schools, and indeed this is often encouraged. Certainly, there are tutors and technicians who are employed to help if required, however in many art school systems students are left to their own devices to develop ideas and skills independently; the freedom and non-conformity associated with ‘Outsider Art’ is promoted within institutionalised art education – students are alone in their own space to work in whatever way they choose.
However, when confronting the more specific area of mental illness within ‘Outsider Art’, these Romantic visions of freedom that viewers bring to their reception of the genre are utopian and largely artificial. As John MacGregor highlights, ‘The Romantic view of madness was seldom based on any real experience of the insane. It was a fantasy, a dream of madness as a treasure trove of the imagination free of reason and constraint.’ (10)
Western society has come a long way in its treatment of mental illness; with the closure of all major mental asylums and the introduction of key community ventures that aim to accept and rehabilitate those who have gone through psychiatric care, we are now moving towards a situation where mental illness is viewed as a natural and common part of human life. There is still a long way to go, but mental illness can no longer be viewed as a liberation; we know that for many it is an enslavement, an inescapable dislocating experience that would be short-sighted to link with these romantic ideologies of artistic and personal inhibition.
In my current research practice, my engagement with mental health institutions allows me to consider how societal labelling and preconceived judgements on artistic value affect not only the work created in these supposed ‘outsider’ communities but also within my own supposed ‘insider’ world. These often negative or unreasonable assumptions are unhelpful; they only add to the feelings of inaccessibility that are in many cases self-fabricated, and in turn alienate artists from potential working spaces that they could otherwise thrive in.
I have come to understand that the categorical term of ‘Outsider Art’ no longer makes any sense. In an art world where any boundaries constructed by the supposed ‘inside’ have been continuously pushed for hundreds of years, the use of any kind of terminology to distinguish artists based on a generalisation of their background is nothing less than discriminatory and elitist. Perhaps like Primitivism, Orientalism, Exoticism etc., ‘Outsider Art’ can now instead stand purely as a tradition; an old-fashioned means of making sense of difference.
Endnotes
1 Paul Klee, quoted in John M. MacGregor, The Discovery of the Art of the Insane. (Princeton: Princeton
2 Jean Dubuffet, “Notes for the Well Lettered” in Art in Theory 1900-2000; An Anthropology of Changing Ideas, ed. Charles Harrison and Paul Wood (Oxford: Blackwell, 1946).
3 Jean Dubuffet, “Art Brut in Preference to the Cultural Arts” trans. Paul Foss and Allen S. Weiss, in Art & Text 27 (1993), 33.
4 Deborah Solomon, "How to Succeed in Art", New York Times Magazine (June 27, 1999).
5 Roger Cardinal, Outsider Art (Connecticut: Praeger, 1972), 30.
6 Barbara Freeman, ‘Biographies of Outsider Artists’ in Parallel Visions ed. M. Tuchman and C S. Eliel (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992), 44.
7 Allan Beveridge, “A Disquieting Feeling of Strangeness?: The art of the mentally ill” Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, (94, November, 2001), pp. 595-99.
8 Boris Groys, “Education by Infection” in Art School (Propositions for the 21st Century) (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2009), 27.
9 John Windsor, ‘”Catch 22: The Case of Albert Louden”, Raw Vision 18 (Spring: 1997), 50.
10 John M MacGregor, The Discovery of the Art of the Insane, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989), 76.
