I am researching Outsider Art for my senior capstone, so it was really interesting for me to read these articles and to think about the term “appropriation” within this context. By definition, outsider art is dependent on the marginality of artists. These are works of art created by so called ‘outsiders’, who can be people on the fringes of society who lack formal artistic education and training, and who are not exposed to contemporary culture and society. Dubuffet was inspired by the works of surrealists and those of patients in psychiatric facilities. He came up with the term ‘art brut’ in the 1940s-50s to define art that was ‘untainted’ by the culture and norms of the academy. Outsider art was proposed as the American equivalent of the term in the 70s, but has evolved significantly since then.
One issue that arises with outsider art (besides its incredibly broad definition over who and what are included), are the ethics behind collecting and curating outsider art. One issue that Plesch and Ashley mention in their article (which fits well with the practice of ‘insiders’ curating the work of ‘outsiders’), is that there is always a relationship between cultural unequals, where a dominate culture will appropriate a weaker culture, leaving the latter with no control over its representations/products. This reveals a question of moral legitimacy of taking art from a less powerful source/culture, at what point do we draw the line when generally, this art is being taken and exhibited for the financial gain and aesthetic pleasure of others?
It is interesting then that Plesch and Ashley argue that appropriation is aimed at creating and/or consolidating identities, and that that is usually a collective identity. I’m not sure if this was the intention, but it made me think of how Outsider Art has come to be its own category. For decades, we have looked to outsider artists to satisfy our desires and interests in the ‘other.’ We are inspired by their raw creativity and talent, but for many of these artists, they are creating art for themselves and for most of the early artists at least, would not consider themselves to be ‘artists’ at all. So looking at it this way, we are ‘appropriating’ their art and backgrounds to create a new culture/artistic catch-all category to fit our ‘dominant’ culture’s market and aesthetic values.