National Art Education Association Folk Art and Outsider Art: Acknowledging Social Justice Issues in Art Education Author(s): Simone Alter Muri Source: Art Education, Vol. 52, No. 4, Teaching Art as if the World Mattered (Jul., 1999), pp. 36-41 Published by: National Art Education Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3193772 . Accessed: 13/02/2011 13:20 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=naea. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. National Art Education Association is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Art Education. http://www.jstor.org r/ FOLK ART AND OUTSIDERART: SocialAcknwleg Justice~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~i Issuesin~ '0 Ar dual N BY SIMONE ALTER MURI he studyof "folkart" and "outsider art" is oftenneglected in the classroom,although these types of artare highly visible in museums, galleries and bought by collectors. The inclusion of "folkart" and "outsiderart" in the artcurriculum can serve as a tool for social awareness.Presenting these forms of artto childrencan help to build a sense of connectionwith the communityand enhance acceptanceof diversity,which in turncan increase an understandingof multiculturalissues, as they are expressed in arteducation. FOLK ART A conclusive definitionof folk artcannot be found in a glossary of art.Folk artistsusually are described as individualswho are self-taught,are not overlyinterested in the technicalaspects of artmaking,or are those who do not reflect a great deal on the psychologicalaspects of their art.Most folk artistsare everydaypeople, often from lower workingclass and socio-economicbackgrounds. Their artmany times depicts suburban,rural, small-town life. Folk artis frequentlyconsidered to be a catchallterm that includes the art of stylisticallynaive, primitive, and "Sunday"painters. The "eccentric"individual, the hobby artist,senior citizen,and prisoners (Parsons,1986) are grouped together under the label of "folkartists" by the mainstreamart world. Lippard (1990) prefers the term "vernacularartist" to folk artist,since most folk artistscreate theirwork at home. ART EDUCATION / JULY 1999 OUTSIDER ART Outsiderart evolved from the term L'artbrut which was created by artist Jean Dubuffetin the 1940s,literally translatedas "rawart." Interest in outsiderart grew from the publication of the bookArtistryof theMentally III publishedin 1923by Printzhor, an art historianand a psychiatrist.Printzhor (1923/1995) chose to name the art made by the patientsthat he collected bildneri,a Germanterm for "image making."The first exhibit of the artof individualswith mentalillness was held in Parisin 1905 (MacGregor,1989). In 1936,at the InternationalSurrealist Exhibition,the surrealistartist Andre Breton exhibited an assemblage box made by a client with schizophrenia. DuBuffettwanted to liberatethe art from the stigma of psychiatriclabels such as "artof the insane,"therefore he created a non-psychiatricterm to describe it. DuBuffetbelieved that the psychopathologyof the artistwas only one way to purifythe artist'sfreshness of vision. Outsiderart could also include the artof social outsiders, spiritualists,and eccentrics. DuBuffet the freedom and special power of the Figure1. MemoriesBox by "Grandma Carlberg." sought out people who created such art outsiderartist. However, art that is and arrangedto have their work inspiredand executed fromthe depths not compromisedby a style of art, exhibited (Parsons, 1986). Roger of the artist'sunconscious may be very school of thought, or a marketingtrend Cardinal,a Britishhumanities painful,repetitive and include images in the artworld (Ragon,1993). professor,coined the term "outsider that depict unusualpreoccupations. "Outsiderartists" are usually self- art"(Cardinal, 1972). DuBuffetwas Cardinal(1972) described outsiderart taught and have an inner need or inspiredby the "rawart" that he viewed as artcreated by people who have no compulsionto create art.Thevoz, and collected, createdby individualsin relationshipto pre-existingmodels of (1976)believed that the one qualitythat mentalhospitals in Switzerland. art.Currently, the argumentexists distinguishes outsiderart is that it flows Manypsychiatrists, artists, art aboutwhether or not, in today'ssociety, directlyfrom the artistonto the art historiansand artcritics have further anyone can be trulyself-taught and materialwith little censorship. Outsider refinedthe definitionof outsiderart. escape social or culturalinfluences artistsdo not want to translatetheir Ideally,outsider art is artcreated (Ames, 1994). Bourbonnais,a innerworlds to the viewer;they are withoutthe influences of artistic colleague of DuBuffetwho foundeda interestedin creatingwhat flows from culture.The ideology promotedby museum for folk and outsiderart in within.Cardinal (1972) believed that DuBuffetassumes a romanticnotion of Dicy, France,believed that this artwas outsiderart could enable the viewer to the only "real"art. Bourbonnais held experience instinctualfeelings. the view that outsiderand folk artis art JULY 1999 / ART EDUCATION MacGregor(1989) describedthe depictingsocially familiar ideas and (Efland,Freedman, & Stuhr,1996). characteristicsof outsiderart as themes in their art. The integrationof folk artand outsider markedlyobsessional work that reveals artin the classroomcan benefit unique creativityand intensity.This art INCLUSIONOF FOLK ART AND minoritygroups by empowering is raw and poweredby internalforces OUTSIDER ART IN THE students to understandthe distinctions that have little or nothing to do with the CURRICULUM that marginalizeless dominantgroups conventionalmotives underlyingthe Includingfolk art and outsiderart in and the hierarchythat exists in the art so-called"traditional reasons" for the curriculumis an excellent teaching world.Folk artistslive andwork in creatingart. Other attributes of tool for multiculturalpedagogy. many communities.However, galleries outsiderart sometimes include a Multiculturalor "cross-cultural"art, do not often representthem or have continuumfrom rigidgeometric forms accordingto Lippard(1990), is an exhibitionsof their art.The entire to elaboratedetails and obsessive integralcomponent of postmoder art. stereotypes. Efland,Freedman, and Stuhr (1996) believe that the postmodernview of RELATIONSHIPOF FOLK ART cultureis rooted in the present. AND OUTSIDER ART Postmodernismin artrepresents the Afine line distinguishesfolk art art of less empoweredgroups including from outsiderart. Accordingto Borum women, minorities,the elderly and (1993/1994), the differencebetween individualswith disabilities. In these two styles of artreveals more postmodernistart, the distinctions aboutthe individualscritiquing the art, between fine art,folk art,and popular than it does the artworkand artiststhat artare dissolved. Postmodernart they are intendedto identify. Lippard emphasizes the study of contemporary (1990) and Parsons (1986) define folk artists.Many states mandatethe artas artthat reflects the culture.Folk inclusionof multiculturalart and artists artis often recognized as simple art as partof the arteducation curriculum. that appealsto viewers because of its Multiculturalismis a postmodernist directness or honesty. Outsiderart is concern in artbecause content is not artcreated from personal viewpoints, taught thatwill enable individualsto reflectinga somewhatinner or acquireknowledge of artfor art'ssake, psychologicalperspective. Often, all but instead,instruction takes place in nonacademicartists are lumped an attemptto change social together under the label of folk artists. relationships(Efland, Freedman, & Similarto outsiderartists, folk artists Stuhr,1996). are consideredto be "outside"the The importanceof includingfolk art ......0 modem "ratrace" lifestyles, therefore and outsiderart in the curriculum I , . ? artproducts are valued as artificiallinks espouses post modernistpedagogy, .. to., to an idealizedpast (Lippard,1990). since both artforms are createdby L' , . Folk artis importantto society individualsoutside the mainstream because it portrayssocial and historical culturewho are often minorities.This school communitycan accept and aspects of areas or times that are challenges the hierarchyof artin the acknowledgeoutsider and folk artists changed or lost. Folk artistsare often artworld. Social reconstructionism is by invitingthese artistsfrom the barometersof the popularculture. In anotheraspect of postmoder communityto talkwith students most cases, folk artistsengage in pedagogy;it is described as a process and/or