WordNet
n. a genre of art and outdoor constructions made by untrained artists who do not recognize themselves as artists [syn: self-taught art, vernacular art, naive art, primitive art]
Wikipedia
The term outsider art was coined by art critic Roger Cardinal in 1972 as an English synonym for art brut (, "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 outside of the established art scene, such as psychiatric hospital patients 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, and there are at least two regularly published journals dedicated to the subject. The term is sometimes misapplied as a catch-all marketing label for art created by people who are outside the mainstream "art world" or "art gallery system", regardless of their circumstances or the content of their work.
Usage examples of "outsider art".
Stores, dealerships, galleries struggled to satisfy the skyrocketing demand for ever more recherche produce: limited-edition olive oils, three-hundred-dollar corkscrews, customized Humvees, the latest anti-virus software, escort services featuring contortionists and twins, video installations, outsider art, featherlight shawls made from the chin-fluff of extinct mountain goats.
MacGregor is the author of the 1988 The Discovery of the Art of the Insane, a seminal study of one manifestation of the form that has been variously called Art Brut, Folk Art, Self-Taught Art, Visionary Art, but which is now commonly classed under the catchall term Outsider Art.
But Turbulence seems more like a genuine artifact of apocalypse, a powerful and disturbing work that falls somewhere between outsider art (Drescher is a self-taught illustrator) and the more self-conscious creations of the Dadaists and Surrealists.
Gill's had opened two months ago on the fringe of the French Quarter and quickly built a rep -- laid back post-cybercafe, Creole inspired menu, walls covered with bright neo-outsider art.