More of Bill's Back Yard

Outsider Art in Fort Collins:

Coined by Roger Cardinal in 1972, the term Outsider Art comes from 'Art Brute' or 'Raw Art'

It was meant to describe certain types of art created outside the boundaries of official culture.

Outsider Art does not have to be outside; nor does it have to be good.

French artist Jean Dubuffet described it as "Those works created from solitude and from pure and authentic creative impulses - where the worries of competition, acclaim and social promotion do not interfere - are, because of these very facts, more precious than the productions of professions."

"After a certain familiarity with these flourishings of an exalted feverishness, lived so fully and so intensely by their authors, we cannot avoid the feeling that in relation to these works, cultural art in its entirety appears to be the game of a futile society, a fallacious parade."

It is art immune to the influences of culture

immune to being absorbed and assimilated.

Dubuffet focused particularly on art by insane asylum inmates.