Liking It Raw

21 Jan 2008 3 Comments

by madsilence in Art, Art History, Creativity, Criticism, Culture, Inspiration, Life, News, Outsider art, Popular Culture, Reviews, Thoughts, Websites Tags: art singulier, Art Sites Gallery, intuitive artists, Survivors Art Foundation, visionary art

I like it raw.  My art, that is.  I’ve been eagerly awaiting New York City’s Outsider Art Fair only to be pleasantly surprised to find an outsider art exhibition here on Long Island.  Nothing Is Black + Whiterecently opened at Art Sites in Riverhead  running through February 3rd.

Outsider art is, in its broadest sense, work created by self-taught artists, those working outside of the artistic mainstream, typically having little or no contact with art galleries and museums. That expansive definition includes individuals who are mentally ill or have experienced some trauma in their lives. While the art itself can vary greatly in style and medium, it often illustrates extreme mental states, unconventional ideas, or elaborate fantasy worlds.

As I traveled to the Art Sites gallery I contemplated my perennial interest in raw art. After all, I’ve visited such exhibitions before. I’ve read the books, perused the journals, and visited the websites. I understand that the contemporary interest in outsider art can be seen as part of a larger emphasis on the rejection of established values within the modernist movement, and the embrace of the primitive. In my intellectual journey I’ve also learned that outsider art can be much like other contemporary art: sometimes banal and derivative, often beautiful and inspiring, and frequently something in-between.  Some outsider art even carries the sign of truly great art: it haunts you and cannot be forgotten.

And yet I can’t help but think that there is something more, some unknown factor that explains my fascination. What exactly is the source of my interest?  Does it reflect some non-obvious, hidden usefulness of the art? 

Outsider art can be much like other contemporary art: sometimes banal and derivative, often beautiful and inspiring, and frequently something in-between.  Some outsider art even carries the sign of truly great art: it haunts you and cannot be forgotten.

It wasn’t until I read Ellen Dissanayake’s book, Homo Aestheticus: Where Art Comes From and Why(The Free Press, 1992), that I gained some understanding of the appeal outsider art holds for me.  Dissanayake is an independent academic affiliated with the University of Washington, Seattle. According to the scholar, it seems likely that humans find emotional satisfaction and calm in the controlled behavior of shaping time and space, of forming and elaborating, of putting things into comprehensible form. This desire to “make special” is an evolutionary trait manifest in all aspects of human creative culture.

      

The title of the book is slightly misleading. Homo Aestheticus deals with human beings as art makers, not as appreciators of aesthetic quality. The satisfaction found in making special is an evolutionary trait within the human species.  The human invention and application of the means to enhance and refine objects and artifacts through the application of color, pattern, rhythm, order, and novelty, is emotionally satisfying. We do it because it is in our nature to do it.  It feels good: the human need for art is biologically programmed.  Dissanayake places these activities within the broader creative cultural context that encompasses not only art but communal creative forms like dance, music and song.  According to Dissanayake:

“Art is a normal and necessary behavior of human beings and like other common and universal occupations such as talking, working, exercising, playing, socializing, learning, loving, and caring, should be recognized, encouraged and developed in everyone. Via art, experience is heightened, elevated, made more memorable and significant.”

Thus outsider artists are doing what we all should do: making special. My mind and spirit respond vicariously to what the outsider artist does: I recognize its importance for myself and the species. Moreover, I am forced to recognize the discord in my own life, how far I have strayed from a core element of human nature. As Dissanayake describes it, modern society has falsely set the creation of art apart from our daily life. Dissanayake further states:

“Indeed, as our lives become increasingly mechanized, rational, and unnatural, we seem to have become proportionately more intrigued by and drawn to the primitive as the source for some kind of elementary truth about ourselves, and perhaps even for instructions on where we went wrong and how we should proceed.”

Interestingly the Nothing Is Black + White exhibition is a benefit for the Survivors Art Foundation. I had the opportunity to speak with Candyce Brokaw, a Long Island artist, trauma survivor, and Executive Director of the Foundation. The creation of art, the making special, is very much a stress reducing behavior. It may be that art making is therapeutic in that it allows us to order, shape and control a small piece of our world. The desire to control the world around us may be directly related to the modernist popularity with collage, assemblage, and installation works, where the artists control physical reality in a very real fashion.

Arts Sites is a moderate-sized gallery and well suited to the exhibition. I certainly didn’t miss the crowds that can be found at The Puck Building in a few weeks. About a dozen visitors came by during my Saturday visit, exhibiting strong interest in the artists and their art. Judging by the presence of purchase stickers, sales have been strong. Indeed, nothing is black and white: come experience the variety. 

      
“Nothing Is Black + White,” Art Sites, 651 West Main Street (Route 25), Riverhead, through Feb. 3. Information: (631) 591-2401.  www.artsitesgallery.com

Related links:
Inside Out – NYC’s Outsider Art Fair  from MadSilence
A Breed Apart  from The New York Times (review of “Nothing Is Black + White”)
The Dance of Evolution, or How Art Got Its Start  from The New York Times
Survivors Art Foundation

~TAB