The terms art brut and outsider art, refer to the kind of art that is created outside the limits of the art world institutions and the official culture. Although there are little differences between the two terms, both are used to describe the practices of individuals such as metal illness patients in asylums (art brut) or self-taught artists, whose creations have not been institutionalized by galleries, museums, or schools (outsider art). Despite the fact that it could become a paradox to create an exhibition of this kind of art, there have been several efforts to do so, and the art has not only been curated and displayed to the public in art institutions (there is a dedicated museum in Switzerland), but also several specialized publications (raw vision) and books (raw creation, vernacular visionaries) have been written about it. This summer, I was able to visit for the first time in my life, two exhibitions that focused on these kind of artists. One of them was at the Halle St. Pierre, and the other at the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain.
Baditi dell’ Arte was the title of the exhibition at the Halle Saint Pierre and, as its translation suggests, the creators of the works were kind of outlaw artists. I was blown away by the amount of material that the curator put together inside the beautiful space of this former pavilion, now a museum and gallery, in the neighborhood of Montmartre. From sculptures to drawings to furniture, the variety of works was certainly impressive. However, the origin of the artists was nor as diverse. The majority of them were Italians and several had produced their work inside mental institutions. The style of their creations surprised me. Although at first glance they could be considered a kind of child art, looking at them closely, one discover a very detailed work, and a lot of violence. They are powerful and mysterious. For instance, the sculpture that we see above, made by Francesco Toris while being at the l’hôpital psychiatrique de Collegno, has so many pieces in tension that when we look at it, the feeling that is going to fall apart is unavoidable. There is a lot of tension but is also some kind of chaotic harmony. A paradox. This was perhaps what interested me the most about the artists from this exhibition, who dealing with mental illness are actually able to represent the chaos and violence of the world in a kind of humble way, without the pretensions of other official artists. The representation of time, for instance, could be totally different in a way that one can only not completely understand. Look for instance at the image bellow, a painting by Carlo Zinelli who was at the psychiatric hospital in Verona.
The other exhibition, Histories de Voir at Fondation Cartier, had a more multicultural approach and focused naïve or outside artists who don’t exhibit their works in contemporary institutions. Although these artists were not working from hospitals or insane institutions, they have produced their works outside of art schools and galleries. The sculptures and painting from these exhibition resemble more the folkloric traditions of craft making. For instance, several of them were indigenous people who represented in their drawings the interactions of their native communities.
Other artists from this exhibition had develop particular styles of drawing, painting, and sculpting, that were difficult to categorize. For instance, bellow is a piece from an Indian artist who shows a fishing community. In general, a characteristic of these kind of art pieces is that they were attached to the local costumes and folklor.
