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Outsider Art | Back when this site got started, I thought I'd be able to
develop a page just devoted to self-taught/outsider art. But until now, the whole
project just got set by the wayside. Now's as good a time as any to start rectifying this.
The motivation for this start comes from a recent e-mail sent by Eva Edleman who wrote, asking:
SAFE CALENDARS || SAFE, a drop in center for mental health system
consumer/survivors, has created an incredibly beautiful
Outsider Art calendar this year, and would like contacts to help
sell it. Please contact us as soon as possible, as we need to get most of the
calendars sold in the next 4 or 5 weeks || NOTE: contact via:
SAFE, PO Box 492, Springfield OR 974777
541 988-9570 or 541 683-8720 safe@efn.org
webpage: http://www.efn.org/~saf
I've seen a past calendar that
Borage Books has published and the art work is quite original, even visionary. And the
money will go to the costs of production. True, this comes asking at a critical time of year,
(so close to Christmas) but well worth it. If I recall, the cost (prepaid -includes shipping)
is $10 per calendar. || Eva can also be reached via edelman@Boragebooks.com
At any rate, this is a fine time to post at least a handful of useful links if
you are interested in and looking for information about outsider art.
smug's view | a good place to
start is with definitions. smug's author, Lesile Harpold, provides just that when talking about
Raw Vision magazine, which is the next item on this list
Raw Vision Magazine |
The editors say of their magazine that:
RAW VISION features Outsider Art. The art of those who
have 'no right' to be artists and yet create works that are so powerful, original and compelling that those on the
cutting edge of art appreciation have hailed it as the greatest discovery yet.
|| With no connection to art movements, art colleges or conventional art museums and galleries,
Outsider Art is a refreshing contrast to much of today's mainstream offerings.
and... Outsider Art is here to stay.
American Visionary Art Museum | Dean
Olsher, on All Things Considered, said of AVAM that it is "...a monument to the failure of
words...which are not yet able to describe the fantastic creations here, starting with the
four-story high whirligig that greets visitors." In Baltimore, MD; 800 Key Highway. (PH 410-244-1900)
The Outsider Pages | Wiliam
Swislow's Interesting Ideas pages (which are
more extensive than just Outsider Art stuff) provides an incredible wealth of links and resources
on Outsider Art, resources, galleries that specialize in this genre, as well as links to artists
themselves.
Fergus Foley provides
another essay helping explain what Outsider Art is and the origins of the same |
Hospital Audiences / Outsider Art | I get
uncomfortable when some place talks about people as this one does "...The Outsider Artists of HAI are mentally ill New Yorkers who have spent as much as 25 years in state mental institutions
before returning to live in the community. They participate in the HAI Arts Workshop Program."
Even if not so, the language begs the question as to whether or not the people whose work is
featured isn't being exploited. But the site provides a chance to see both the work and
to find out more about how to
 purchase original art in venues where the artists actually end up
geting paid something decent for their labors and the get recognition outside and apart from
the institutions they spent time in ...and that's important too.
Friends of the Prinzhorn Collection | The
Prinzhorn collection was compiled by a Nazi doctor; the works were assembled and displayed in Nazi
Germany as examples of "degenerate art" thus excoriating the artists while the owner (Prinzhorn)
personally profited from their creativity. Now, the collection is still intact but the
Psychiatric Clinic of the University of Heidelberg refuses to exhibit or display it. It
ths remains censored. This site tells of efforts made to try to end that censorship.
Look for all these above links and more as I develop the Outsider Art links page in the future.
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