Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Wollongong, 2008. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references: leaf 267-300.

« Quel est le point commun entre un fou, un poète, un artiste, un curé, une personne handicapée mentale et un facteur? L'Art Brut bien sûr». L’Art Brut (les anglophones préfèrent la notion d' Outsider Art) et sa déclinaison actuelle, l'Art Singulier apparaissent comme un sujet qui dépasse largement le cadre artistique et l'invention de Jean Dubuffet en 1945, pour s'étendre au domaine de la psychologie et de la sociologie, en « touchant » la société toute entière. Ce phénomène social et artistique, dans sa diversité, ses manifestations et ses paradoxes, interroge tout autant la sociologie, que l'histoire de l'art. Le regain d'intérêt actuel pour cette forme d'expression singulière, liée à une morale et à une certaine vision del'existence, nous interroge sur des questions essentielles de la vie sociale. A partir d'une enquête et d'entretiens avec des artistes contemporains, nous avons voulu interroger la filiation, artistique et sociologique, entre les pionniers del'Art Brut et les créateurs, qui se réclament aujourd'hui de l'Art Singulier; comprendre le sens de la multiplication des expositions et des manifestations qui sont consacrées à une forme artistique qui semble aujourd'hui cristalliser unecontestation de l'art contemporain officiel et un engagement social spécifique des artistes, dans leur mode de vie et leur rapport au travail. A travers l'étude des thèmes et de l'esthétique particulière à cet« art populaire contemporain», nous avons aussi voulu comprendre quelle vision du monde voulaient nous faire partager ces artistes atypiques et en quoi leurs œuvres étaient révélatrices d'une morale, mais aussi constitutives d'un courant et d'un style. / "What do a lunatic, a poet, an artist, a priest, a mentally retarded person and a postman have in common? "Outsider Art, of course" Outsider art (as it is referred to by English speakers) and its current approach Known as Singular Art (Art Singulier) appear like a subject that goes way beyond the artistic scope and the invention by Jean Dubuffet in 1945, to extend to the field of psychology and sociology, thus encompassing "society at large». This artistic and social phenomenon, through its diversity, its various expressions and paradoxes, raises questions in sociology as well as in the history of Art. The current renewed interest for that furur of uncommon artistic expression, linked to ethics and a certain vision of existence, makes us ponder over the essential issues of social life. Through a survey and several interviews with contemporary artists, we have sociological relation between the pioneers of " Art Brut " and today's artists who claim to belong to " Art Singulier"; we have also tried to understand the meaning of the many exhibitions as well as multifarious .events dedicated to a forum of Art which seems, today, to embody a certain anti-official contemporary trend as well as a specific social commitment from the artists, in their way of life as well as in the relation they have with their own work. By studying the themes and aesthetics of that "contemporary popular art" we have endeavoured to understand what vision of world those atypical artists wanted to share with us and to what extent their works revealed an ethnics and also actually built up an artistic movement and a style.

This thesis deals with the art created at Swedish mental institutions during the 20th century, a medium which generally is found synonymous with outsider art in previous scholarship. The overarching aim is to categorize visual art created under the circumstances of such institutions, exclusively based on its visual expression. Following Wölfflin’s five principles of objective classification, formal analysis is employed. To accomplish the thesis’ aim, differences between recognized outsider artists and institutionalized producers of art are investigated, which in turn sheds light on the definition of outsider art. Focus is put on the actual paintings, and not on the identities of the creators of the works, nor their history as patients at the different institutions. Primary data consist of photographed paintings from the archives of Säter Mental Health Care Museum in Dalarna, Sweden, while additional historical accounts describing 20th century art movements are implemented to justify each painting’s categorical belonging. The results support that a biographical difference, between the two strands of art, is explanative for the current misunderstanding of what outsider art actually is. This fosters further engagements with what variables ought to determine a work of art’s categorization.

This dissertation is focused on phenomenon of madness in French surrealism and genre called "écrits bruts". The main theme is confrontation of surrealism aesthetics madness with written production of psychotic and mostly schizophrenic patients. The primary outcome is presented by analysis and interpretation of two chosen literary works, which are collection of experimental poetry by André Breton and Paul Éluard called L'Immaculée conception (Immaculate Conception, 1930) and diary entries, known as Premier Cahier: de l'ordre des messages, mai 1935, written by one of the most significant French women representatives Jeanne Tripier,. The aim of this analysis is on one hand to identify and characterize forms through which simulated and "real" madness in texts presented are, and on the other hand to describe its poetic function. The methodology part is based on structural and genre analysis of both aforementioned movements and moreover is formed on outcomes of the phenomenologically oriented psychiatry and psychoanalysis.

The purpose of this thesis is to study and analyse collections of outsider art in two Swedish Medical History Museums, Medicinhistoriska museet in Uppsala and Mentalvårdsmuseet in Säter. The work explores how the history of the museums, how art collections were established, the outsider artist as well as how the two museums work the collections today. The empirical part of the study is based on the fieldwork that the author conducted at the Medicinhistoriska museet in Uppsala and Mentalvårdsmuseet in Säter during two separate days in the winter/spring of 2022. Both observations of the museum room were made, as well as interviews with the two curators in charge of the art collections. Attentive observations and systematic notes from constitute the basis for the description of the material and immaterial features of the museum. For the chapters on the historical and cultural context concerning outsider art, art brut, psychiatric care and how the hospitals became museums, literary sources were used.  The result of the study shows that outsider art made in a hospital is a very specific part of outsider art and art brut because of the very special conditions of an often locked psychiatric care unit. It implies that outsider art made in psychiatric care have not been seen as real art, not been viewed as interesting for the public. There has existed an authorised heritage discourse (“AHD”) in the hospitals and well as in the later museums which has led to the collections not been correctly taken care of, and research about the patients has not been made. Instead, the patients work has been stored incorrectly in attics, basements and in un-locked storage areas with only a few ”aesthetically pleasing” works showed in the museum.      Further, the study shows how the art collections in the two medical hospitals correctly used and worked with, can be a part of removing the stigma around mental disease and people living with it.  The conclusions to be drawn from this are that the complexity of the art collections of outsider art made in psychiatric care lie in the fact that mental illness, psychiatric hospitals, and outsider art have been under a stigma, as well as the fact that the patients’ stories being stories from the margin. This is a two-years master’s thesis in Museum and Cultural Heritage Studies.

Denne oppgaven omhandler kunstsjangeren Outsider Art i norsk kontekst, med særlig fokus på kunsten som ble laget av elevene ved skolen på den nord-norske sentralinstitusjonen Trastad Gård. Skolen og kunstnerne blir stilt opp mot rådende teorier innenfor sjangeren for å få svar på spørsmålet: Kan kunsten fra Trastad Gård defineres som Outsider Art? / This paper deals with the art genre Outsider Art in a Norwegian context, with particular focus on the art that was created by students at the school at Trastad Gård (Trastad Gård was the main Northern Norwegian institution for people with mental disabilities). The school and the artists are examined against the prevailing theories in the genre to answer the question: Can art from Trastad Gård be defined as Outsider Art?

Depuis les années 1930, un lent processus d’« artification » investit des lieux de vieembellis par leurs propres habitants avec des techniques improvisées. Considérés àl’origine comme des curiosités locales, ces sites sont révélés au monde de l’art par lessurréalistes, qui amorcent leur documentation. Dans l’après-guerre, ils connaissent uneréception de plus en plus enthousiaste au sein de certains milieux artistiques et serontannexés successivement à l’art médiumnique, à l’art naïf, à l’art brut, à l’outsider art, àl’architecture fantastique, entre autres, donnant lieu à une pléthore de définitions. Cesenvironnements irréguliers seront alors considérés souvent comme l’expressionspontanée d’impulsions intérieures, sans influences ni tradition. Cette thèse propose derevenir aux origines de cette forme artistique, en révélant le mouvement circulaire qui larelie, d’une part, aux cultures populaires et, d’autre part, aux courants officiels del’histoire de l’art contemporaine. Elle examine également les conditions de sa réceptions,dans un contexte dominé jusque dans les années 1970 par le paradigme primitiviste,avant de se concentrer sur la multiplication des initiatives qui, depuis la fin des années1970, marquent un renouvellement du regard. Tout au long, les environnementsirréguliers sont questionnés dans leur faculté à associer des notions fondamentales –art, culture, marginalité, architecture, grotesque, baroque, ornemental, entre autres – età être saisis comme un outil opératoire désignant une forme d’authenticité artistique ouculturelle. / Since the 1930s, a slow process of « artification » invested living spaces decorated bytheir own inhabitants with improvised techniques. Originally regarded as localcuriosities, these sites have been introduced to the artistic world by the Surrealists, whobegan their documentation. In the post war period, they have been seen with increasingenthusiasm in some artistic circles and then have been linked to mediumistic art, naiveart, art brut, outsider art, fantastic architecture, among others, creating a plethora ofdefinitions. Irregular environments have often been considered as the spontaneousexpression of inner impulses, without influence or tradition. This thesis proposes toreturn to the origins of this form of art, revealing the circular movement that connects it,on one hand, to the popular cultures and, on the other hand, to the officials movementsof the history of contemporary art. It also examines the conditions of its own reception,in a context dominated until the 1970s by the primitivist paradigm, before of focusing onthe many initiatives that, since the late 1970s, brought a renewed look. All along,irregular environments have been questioned in their ability to combine fundamentalconcepts - art, architecture, culture, marginality, ornamental, among others - and to betaken as an operational tool for a form of artistic or cultural authenticity.

L'art comme jeu n'est pas une simple métaphore. Il correspond à la forme que prennent de nombreuses œuvres d'art notamment les maquettes et miniatures contemporaines et aujourd'hui le jeu est représenté ou mis en scène dans de nombreuses expositions. Cependant l'artiste n'est pas un joueur comme les autres mais un joueur professionnel qui s'oppose à la figure du non-artiste ou de l'artiste amateur défendue par les artistes des avant-gardes qui avaient élevé le jeu au rang d'art. Alors que la consommation de l'art prend la forme d'un divertissement à grande échelle et que l'on assiste à une Disneylandisation des musées, l'art contemporain comme jeu ne semble plus aussi subversif que celui des années soixante. Pourtant l'art comme jeu en tant que modèle et outil de changement social perdure. C'est un art d'attitude, héritier des dernières avant-gardes, se tenant en dehors des frontières habituelles de l'art et réalisant le dépassement souhaité par les situationnistes ou Allan Kaprow. / Art as play is not only a metaphor. It is the particular form of many works of art, especially contemporary models and miniatures. Play itself is nowadays represented or staged in numerous exhibitions. However, the artist is not a player like any other but a professional player in contrast to the figure of the non-artist or amateur artist defended by avant-garde artists who had raised play to the level of art. While the consumption of art takes the form of large-scale entertainment and we witness a Disneylandisation of museums, contemporary art as play no longer seems as subversive as it did in the sixties. Yet art as play as model and tool for social change endures. It is an art of attitude, heir to the last avant-gardes, standing outside the usual boundaries of art and an art that achieves the desired by Allan Kaprow and the Situationists.

The Owl House is situated in the Karoo village of Nieu Bethesda, and the person responsible for its creation, Helen Elizabeth Martins (1897-1976), is South Africa's best known Outsider artist. A number of newspaper and magazine articles, television programmes, radio interviews, play, films, short stories, theses and art works have resulted directly from her work. Interest in The Owl House continues to grow, with visitors coming from all over South Africa, and various parts of the world,to visit it. The Owl House was Helen Martins' home for most of her 78 years. During the last 30 or so years of her life she devoted all her time and energy to transforming the interior of her house into a glistening fantasy world of colour and light, using crushed glass stuck to almost every surface, coloured glass pane inserts in the walls, mirrors of many sizes and shapes, and countless paraffin lamps and candles. She called her garden' A Camel Yard', and filled it with over 500 cement statues, structures and bas reliefs. All the labour involved, apart from crushing and sorting the coloured glass, was provided by at least four different men, who assisted her over the years, Johannes Hattingh, Jonas Adams, Piet van der Merwe and Koos Malgas, though Helen Martins was the inspiration and director behind it all. Through a study of Helen Martins' background and life, and their effects upon her psyche, a rigorous attempt has been made to reach some understanding of why she became a recluse, and what caused her to create this unique body of work comprising her entire domestic environment. She became increasingly asocial as her life progressed, and ultimately ended it by committing suicide in 1976. Through the universality of symbolism, the meanings of the subjects, themes and concerns which she chose to depict are studied. Then, together with some knowledge of her life and personal influences, an attempt has been made to deduce what it was that Helen Martins was trying to express and work through in her creations. This study also led to an awareness of the fact that, although each one is unique, there are many examples of Outsider Art throughout the world. Fundamentally, creators of Outsider Art remain asocial in relation to their cultural milieu and cultural context. Some other examples of Outsider Art, both in South Africa as well as in Europe and India, were visited, and are described and compared with The Owl House as well as with one another. The way in which society reacts or responds to Outsider Art and its creators is studied through the comprehensive records of one specific case which caused great controversy in Johannesburg during the 1970s. Ultimately, working alone or with assistance, it is the Outsider artist who is the driving force behind these unique works, and whose indefinable inner fire of passion alone makes it possible to bring them into being. It would seem that the fascination with Outsider Art is that through their work, creators allow others a glimpse into a different sense of reality which is both mysterious and inexplicable.