About this title: Surveys the history and reception of outsider art, work produced outside the mainstream of modern Western art. From the spirit-guided Madge Gill to the schizophrenic Adolph Wolfli, the book explores how these individuals passionately and obsessively explore the pictorial expression of their vision.
Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Edition: First paperback edition
Binding: Trade Paperback
Publisher: Thames & Hudson; World of Art Ser., London and New York
Date Published: 2000
ISBN-13:9780500203347ISBN:0500203342
Description: 0140207015. Fine. 8vo-over 7¾"-9¾" tall. 224 pp., illus. (some col. ), biblio., index; 21 cm. Tight, clean copy. Art brut, art-of-the-insane, and contemporary "primitive" artists. read more
Description: Good. Minimal damage to cover and binding. Pages show light use. With pride from Motor City. All books guaranteed. Best Service, Best Prices. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Thames & Hudson
Date Published: 2000-04
ISBN-13:9780500203347ISBN:0500203342
Description: Very Good. Very good condition-all pages intact w/o any marks or writing. Most items ships same day w/ FREE delivery confirmation. Great Feedback! read more
"Found this on the shelf, the most interesting factor is the connection between all art. Children's art, modern artists, prison art, art of the mentally ill, they all have connections and patterns. Primitive art and its imagery is an expression no matter who you are and artistic talent can be gifted to anyone."
"The search for artistic definition continues in this scholarly approach to l'art brut,, more popularly known as "outsider," or folk, art. Author/essayist Colin Rhodes acknowledges the inherent challenges to define a non-genre such as outsider art. Typified as being the sincere creative output compiled by unversed, societally damaged individuals, Rhodes deconstructs such commonly-held stereotypes through example and exposition.
"Unenlightened criticism of modern western art often focuses on perceived similarities with children's drawings," writes Rhodes early in this examination. "Yet, the economy of means and apparent spontaneity achieved in the work of trained professionals does not signal a continuation of childhood, but a 'recovery' at a highly sophisticated level of certain childlike features." Any comparison between that which typifies outsider art and the output by unskilled childish hands stops beyond that which is purely superficial; the child depicts the most prominent features, just as many outsider artists, though not necessarily through an almost obsessive need to express that which cannot be put into words.
The element of the surreal - whether formulated within the hallucinations of the tormented or incarcerated, or fermented within the free mind forever voyaging - does not qualify such art easily, either. The paradoxically stringent standards of what defines outsider art is in a near-frequent state of flux, with certain artists drifting in and out of the so-called external realm.
Rhodes does not deign to definitively comprehend such semi-lucid designations, though he does present a wide variety of examples, along with a line or two of non-critical description. The closest Rhodes comes to critical analysis, in fact, arises from a brief reference to the work of schizophrenic pedophile Roland Claude Wilkie as being "unremittingly brutal" and containing "nothing to be celebrated" other than representing a "most chilling potentiality of the human psyche."
Outsider Art: Spontaneous Alternatives presents an intellectual's guide to the phenomenon to l'art brut, touching on the varied aspects of cultural collision, cognitive defect, and creative obsession which all formulate a part of the colloidal coagulation which brings together (and forever holds apart) the lives and output of these Outsiders."
"This book inspired me to create an exhibition called www.internalguidancesystems.com it was a visionary show from 2006-2008 Colin Rhodes is brilliant."
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