+ Outsider Art

The term outsider art was coined by art critic Roger Cardinal in 1972 as an English synonym for art brut (French:  "raw art" or "rough art"), a label created by French artist Jean Dubuffet to describe art created outside the boundaries of official culture; Dubuffet focused particularly on art by those on the outsides of the established art scene such as insane-asylum inmates and children.

While Dubuffet's term is quite specific, the English term "outsider art" is often applied more broadly, to include certain self-taught or naïve art makers who were never institutionalized. Typically, those labeled as outsider artists have little or no contact with the mainstream art world or art institutions. In many cases, their work is discovered only after their deaths. Often, outsider art illustrates extreme mental states, unconventional ideas, or elaborate fantasy worlds.

Outsider art has emerged as a successful art marketing category (an annual Outsider Art Fair has taken place in New York since 1993). The term is sometimes misapplied as a catch-all marketing label for art created by people outside the mainstream "art world," regardless of their circumstances or the content of their work.

Henry Joseph Darger, Jr. ( April 12, 1892 – April 13, 1973) was a reclusive American writer and artist who worked as a custodian in Chicago, Illinois.^[1] He has become famous for his posthumously-discovered 15,145-page, single-spaced fantasy manuscript called The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What is known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco-Angelinian War Storm, Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion, along with several hundred drawings and watercolor paintings illustrating the story. Darger's work has become one of the most celebrated examples of outsider art.

text and photos from wikipedia.org, thanks wiki!

+ Yang Yongliang - Sleepless Wonderland

http://www.yangyongliang.com/

excerpt from Inside the Design Mind IV....

By Andrew Caruso

 Monday, February 11, 2013 8:00 am

AC: You intricately weave worlds of reality and constructed absurdity (fantasy). Visual clues and representational objects suggest the uneasy way these two worlds collide in your work, with viewers searching them as if reading a map. Why have you chosen to engage the viewer in this way?

YY: Because I am very complicated. My character can be divided in two parts, like Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata [sic]. This piece of music has both a passionate and a peaceful side. I think I’m very similar. I like fantasy and passionate things as well as very peaceful and logical things. You can see that all of my works also have two sides: peace and danger, tradition and modernity, all combined.

I think my works are trying to express a great deal of information to the audience, but I don’t want everyone to understand my work in the same way I understand it. I want the viewer to interpret it in his or her own way. I think good artists should be inspiring and sensitive, rather than imposing their own concepts on an audience.

+ public art goes public

Trying to define street art isn't easy, mostly because the definition depends on who you ask. People in law enforcement consider it a crime and city government call it a nuisance. The director of Los Angeles MOCA has deemed it worthy of its own exhibition. Ask Alfie Dennen, the British creative technologist behind the startup Big Art Mob (currently in beta), and he'll tell you that at the very least, the definition needs expanding. "Under the [UK’s] legal definition the only art that can ever be considered public are architecture or works that have been created through an institutional hierarchy," Dennen says. He defines public art a bit more broadly: "Any work in public view created by a person or group whose aim was to create what they believe to be art, irrespective of genre or style." Launching publicly next week, the Big Art Mob app and accompanying website aim to expand awareness and appreciation of public art by inciting users to upload pictures of it in all forms—graffiti, tagging, public art, and institutional art. These images are then integrated into a user friendly map and a unique bank of well-categorized metadata. Dennen, whose body of creative work combines technology and mass collaboration, says the Big Art Mob concept is different from most startups—it focuses on creating a "point-of-interest data base." "Most startups say 'this is my commercial model and we will have ongoing revenues of x,' but we have a much more complex position on what its eventual and current value is," Dennen said. "[Big Art Mob] combines elements of public utility and documentation around art in a way which isn’t directly commercially exploitable." While the app and website are designed for international use, the rich tradition and appreciation of street art in London makes it a fitting birthplace. Some local councils in the UK, particularly those in the capital, are taking a progressive stance when it comes to street art clean-up, such as only removing a work deemed offensive. Dennen hopes that a wide user base of his app will serve as proof for why local governments should invest in, rather than shun, art in the public realm. "We have a global treasure in public art," said Dennen. "Part of that is the ephemerality of street art and graffiti and we should capture that because we can, because now is the digitized future. We have a responsibility to do that." article by Rosie Spinks Freelance writer and journalist www.good.is

+ Jean Dubuffet

Jean Dubuffet (1901-1985) began the Hourloupe cycle in 1962. At the time the artist was 61 years old and had been painting for 20 years. In the beginning the cycle consisted of drawings and paintings, but Dubuffet, wishing to give them greater “corporality,” transformed the flattened images into three-dimension, creating what he referred to not as painted sculptures, but rather “drawings which extend and expand in space.”[1] It was for the architectural dimension of his work that Dubuffet would earn the American Institute of Architects’ medal, the only honor that he did not turn down during his lifetime.



The Hourloupe cycle, characterized by three predominate colors: red, white, and blue with sinuous black lines representing a major exploration of three-dimensional space influenced by the artist’s interest in architecture and, as Daniel Abadie explains, by his desire “to design monumental sculptures as a dialogue with passersby.”

http://www.contemporaryartdaily.com/2008/11/jean-dubuffet-at-pace-wildenstein/



this third picture i took at the center for performing art in Louisville kentucky. these figures are an early influence of scculpture and art for me because i grew up seeing them when my mother would take me to the ballet.

the viewer can absorb infinitely for meaning from art work once aware of the arists, social, and historical context. some things i am learning all about in my design class at metro.