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Marketing and selling art has always been a rather thorny operation. Artists cloister themselves in their studios, baring their souls, pouring their hearts out on canvas or paper, or, like alchemists, transforming raw or found materials into sculpture. Then they take the fruits of their labor to galleries, where it is hung for all to see, judge, and perhaps purchase. It is more common than not that what is deemed exceptional by an art aficionado may not always be what flies off the gallery wall and fetches a high price.
Often, curators and gallery owners select art based on its salability, which of course may depend not only on how beautiful, controversial or avant-garde the work is, but also on who made it. Throughout Western art history, select artists have reached star status, either in their own day, or posthumously.
It seems that the more controversial an artist's life was, the more art collectors and museum-goers covet their work. Few people would dispute the sublimity of Van Gogh's vividly colored, thickly painted masterpieces, and most people know at least some of his life story: he was deemed to be insane; following a quarrel with artist Paul Gauguin, he suffered a breakdown and cut off part of his ear and sent it to Gauguin; he lived off of his brother Theo's generosity; he sold only one painting in his lifetime; he died penniless. How much does Van Gogh's unconventional and troubled life contribute to our fascination with his paintings?
This question, and the issues surrounding artist's lives and personalities, are central to any discussion of the class of artists know as “Outsiders.” Outsider artists are usually untrained, often mentally ill and, until the late 20th century, always on the periphery of the art establishment. The Artists of Gugging , an exhibition of work by eight world-renowned Outsider artists, is currently on view at Headfooters Gallery.
The artists in the exhibition are patients at the infamous Haus Der Kunstler (The House of Artists), on the grounds of the Maria Gugging Psychiatric Clinic in Austria. Haus Der Kunstler is unique in that it is home to a group of artistically gifted psychiatric patients. It is not a center for art therapy; rather, it offers a supportive environment for its talented dwellers, whose work is exhibited internationally, and in the permanent collections of the most prestigious museums, including the Collection de l'Art Brut in Lausanne, Switzerland, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Museum of Modern Art in Philadelphia, and the Setagaya Museum in Tokyo.
The paintings, prints and drawings in The Artists of Gugging are utterly enchanting. And the range of work is amazing: in some cases it is obsessively detailed, in others it is simplistically spare. Johann Garber, for instance, crams so much detail into his India ink drawings that they seem as if they might jump off of the page. His An Elephant-Animals-Zoo is a depiction of a highly stylized elephant below a smiling sun (or moon), and two elongated airplanes. The depth of the image is leveled, as Garber fills any white space with patterned shapes and abstract flowers. The elephant, like all of his figures, both human and animal, bears an anatomically correct, erect human penis. Despite the stylized rendering of the animal, the elephant appears agitated, even aggressive, with his horns raised and his teeth exposed. Garber's A Helicopter displays an elaborate, realistic flying helicopter. The picture is packed with intricate detail, including a tiny helicopter pilot,with his penis exposed. The two images demonstrate a fondness for both the natural world of plants and animals, and the industrial world of machines and hi-tech contraptions, and they are evidence of a consistently progressive artistic method and style.
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Conversely, Oswald Tschirtner's imagery is simple and spare; often only one or two images fill a page, or an iconic figure is repeated several times. His India ink drawing titled Two Sisters depicts four of his characteristic figures, termed by Outsider art collectors and scholars as “headfooters” (the origin of the gallery's name). The headfooter figures are, as the term suggests, personages whose large, simple heads are connected to long legs; in other words, they have no bodies. Tschirtner's figures are often drawn in profile, and he renders them with large white eyes and large ears and noses. The headfooter figures in Two Sisters have diagonal stripes, which slightly activates them, and gives the drawing a bit of dimensionality. Tschirtner's drawings are childlike, yet unlike the children's art, his imagery and personal iconography constantly reappear and, like many “insider” artists, he seems to be working through matters of aesthetics and artistic technique.
There is a freedom and a lack of inhibition in the work in The Artists of Gugging exhibition. Arnold Schmidt's Figure is a colorful, lively drawing of an androgynous human form. Four black, outlined circles are the foundation of the drawing, which Schmidt went over spastically with a vivid red-orange and a bit of green and yellow. The figure, with antenna-like protrusions atop its head, appears to vibrate nimbly on the page. It is a visually riveting work of art.
The work of the
Gugging artists is first-rate, and many curators, gallerists and collectors
hold it in high esteem. However, it is disconcerting that the topic
of insanity is always raised in the context of “outsiders.”
Of course, the category incites such discussion. And clearly, the lives
of the Gugging artists are not like those of most artists. No matter
how much artistic freedom and support they are given, no matter how
beautifully serene the setting of their communal home, it is still an
institution, and the artists are institutionalized. As with the work
of Van Gogh, it is difficult to avoid questioning whether art collectors
and dealers collect, market and sell Outsider art because there is a
legend, a story that goes along with it. By casting some artists as
“outsiders,” it is assumed that there are true “insiders.”
Creating dichotomous categories of artists as “normal” or
“abnormal,” “sane” or “insane” is
a highly contestable endeavor. Perhaps someday the art world will evolve
to a point where there are no “insiders” and no “outsiders.”
Instead, there will only be artists.