Outsider Art

ART REVIEW
A Tension Between the Sacred and the Profane

What exactly are we looking at? Is it the real thing, or is it the promotion of a famous brand gussied up in spectacular, pseudo-sacramental style? Gold or fool’s gold?

This sort of confusion pervades today’s art world, where, so often, the sales pitch comes in the form of quasi-religious rhetoric. It’s a big reason the tribal arts of Africa and other lands — as well as the putatively purely authentic creations of folk artists and so-called outsiders — are held in such high esteem.

— Ken Johnson, review of two exhibitions,
    of tribal African art and of Brancusi