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Outsider Art has come to encompass artists whose legacies are marked by and intertwined with their personal neurodiversities or disorders, as well as those whose careers came posthumously on account of reclusiveness or experiences with institutionalization. It’s an umbrella term for artists who did not have “formal training,” and yet, have produced oeuvres that are undoubtedly career- and era-defining, or those who have pulled themselves up by the bootstraps to render creative genius.
This, however, comes with a catch: a special attention to how works by Outsider artists fit into the aesthetic standards of whatever world they are, markedly, excluded from. Outsider art, known to some as art brut, is also an established market, one that is only willingly experienced within the bizarre hierarchies and “refined” techniques of Fine Art.
So, if and when an artist and their body of work doesn’t fit into those niches, does that automatically nullify the legitimacy of their artistry?
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FOR ARTISTS SUCH AS THALYA BAKER AND ERIC SOWERS, THEIR ARTISTIC PRACTICES ARE, BY VIRTUE OF THEIR BEING ARTISTS, A NATURAL PATHWAY TO SELF-CONSTRUCTION AND AFFIRMATION, WHICH TENDS TO BE TRUE FOR MOST ARTISTS TO BEGIN WITH. WHEN PLACED IN A LARGER DIALOGUE ABOUT WHO HAS ACCESSIBILITY TO THE PRESTIGE OF BEING LABELED “A FINE ARTIST,” THEIR WORKS FUNCTION AS A BATTERING RAM, ALLOWING THEM TO FORGE ENTRY INTO A WORLD TYPICALLY EXPERIENCED FROM THE PERIPHERY.
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RATHER THAN MAKING THIS AN UNPLEASANT FAWNING OVER DARLING OUTSIDER ART, OR A FAMILIAR ROMANTICIZING OF OTHERNESS, ME IS MEANT TO BE AN EXAMPLE OF WHAT AN INTENTIONALLY DEMOCRATIC ART WORLD CAN LOOK LIKE. THE LEGITIMIZING OF ARTISTS WHO HAVE INTELLECTUAL DISABILITIES OR ARE NEURODIVERSE GRANTS THEM AN AGENCY THAT THE PUBLIC ISN’T USED TO GRANTING THEM, ONE THAT HAS THE CAPACITY TO DEMOLISH WEIRD RULES WE’VE COLLECTIVELY INTERNALIZED ABOUT WHO IS GIVEN ACCESS TO THE FINE ART WORLD, AND WHO “MAKES CUTE DRAWINGS.” THE WORKS IN THIS EXHIBITION ARE INTERNAL OBSERVATIONS AND WORLDS MADE MEANINGFUL, AND MORE THAN ANYTHING, CONDUITS FOR SELF-CONSTRUCTION AND AFFIRMATION.
CURATION AND STATEMENT: MARIA GABRIELA DI GIAMMARCO
Me: I Am Not An Outsider, I Am An Artist: Featuring works by Thalya Baker & Eric Sowers. Curated by Maria Gabriela Di Giammarco
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