OUTSIDER ART IN CONTEMPORARY MUSEUMS: THE CELEBRATION OF POLITICS OR ARTISTRY?

Outsider Art is booming in the legitimate, contemporary art world (Tansella, 2007; Chapin, 2009). Contrary to Insider Art -objects that are created by trained artists on the basis of accepted, pre-existing concepts, frameworks or representations-, Outsider Art is made by untrained artists who create for no-one but themselves by reacting to internal, not external, prerequisites. It is their individual quirkiness and idiosyncrasy that stands out and for that reason, Outsider Art is celebrated because of the authentic autobiography of the maker. As Outsider Art is not based on a goldmine of traditions” (Tansella, 2007, p. 134) such as a predetermined vision and a stylistic framework -as it is the case with Insider Art-, gatekeepers want to make sure that audiences are aware of the difference between the oppositional categories: they deconstruct the aesthetic system by justifying the objects on the basis of the artist’s biography. The art evaluation of audience is affected by the authority that cultural institutions and the cultural elite enjoy when it comes to their legitimizing power to turn objects in to art (Becker, 1982; Bourdieu, 1984). Considering the unconventional way of curating, however, audiences might feel a tension between what art ought to be and the justification of it by the artist’s biography. It is argued that they celebrate the works because of their “unusual quality […] and out of sympathy for the suffering artists” (Polling, 2015, p. 8), however, there is a gap in the literature that points out how audiences experience and reflect on the centralization of the artists’ biography in their evaluation of the Outsider objects being made. Biography and context run to a certain extent always through exhibitions, yet how much biography is needed to consider objects as art? Therefore, the aim of this research is to find out how visitors experience the place and role of Outsider Art exhibitions in contemporary museums and their predominant focus on the artist’s biography? In total, 11 participants were recruited at the Outsider Art Museum in Amsterdam. The museum run an exhibition in which the biography of the artists was placed in limelight. Qualitative semi-structured interviews were conducted, and the data derived from these was analyzed by using Grounded Theory (GT) in the first round and Thematic Analysis (TA) in the second round. It was found that context about the artist’s biography does matter, yet not solely on the basis of how the dominant, Insider culture these interpreted: a dialogue with the artists themselves is essential to understand who the Outsider is and for what reason(s) they created what is being portrayed on the canvas. This is specifically useful for the emancipation of the artists, yet not really necessary for the appreciation of the art works: these can be presented on their own to be evaluated as ‘good’ art. This suggests that Outsider Art is more than just the biography of the maker.