Re: Outsider Art Resources (Current Awareness, blog post #2)

To: Dr. Calvin Hobbes, Professor of Art and the Other, Falkor College

From: Jonah Santiago, Art Librarian/Archivist, University of Hyrule

Subject: Re: Outsider Art Resources

Dear Dr. Hobbes,

Thank you for contacting the Termina Library for the procurement of outsider art resources.  As part of the Consortium of the Hoenn Region, we at the University of Hyrule are always more than happy to assist a sister institution.  I would first like to congratulate you on the establishment of your new course, Art and the Other; it will certainly be a wonderful addition to Falkor College's Art History program.

With regards to the information you had requested, I thought it best to focus on online resources for more current examples and criticisms of the genre.  With that in mind, I hope the following websites suit your needs.

•  l'Art Brut -- It would be remiss of me to feature links about outsider art without referencing the museum dedicated to the man who 'started it all,' Jean Dubuffet.  This is the official website for the museum housed in Lausanne, Switzerland and it contains tens of thousands of pieces generated from over a thousand different creators.  Of particular note is the website's informational pages dedicated to its publications and films.

• Raw Vision Magazine -- The self-proclaimed "only international journal of the art of the 'unknown geniuses' who are the creators of Outsider Art," Raw Vision is a quarterly publication of global accounts.  The website offers information for access to both hard and digital copies of their issues, both current and past.  It also provides a handy page on videos they find worthy of note.

• Intuit: The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art -- This website offers insight into the non-profit organization's extensive collection of over a thousand pieces of outsider art.  Of special interest is one of its permanent installations, the Henry Darger Room, which is the actual living and work space of Henry Darger, a well-known outsider artist of the 20th century.  Intuit also features information about its yearly magazine.

• Cavin Morris Gallery -- While this gallery doesn't exclusively feature outsider art, it still possesses an extensive collection of "self-taught" contemporary outsider artists which would be ideal for visual references in your course.  A great feature of the website is its collection of catalogs fully available online.

• Henry Boxer Gallery -- This particular organization functions as both a gallery and a third-party dealer, facilitating the sales of the artists featured within their site.  The gallery's extensive compilation of artists (complete with biography/professional information) is easily searchable and categorized into sections such as "outsider," "naive," and "self-taught" for great ease.

• Museum of Everything -- This website features information on the Museum of Everything, a British charity and wandering institution that focuses on contemporary outsider art.  It features an extensive gallery, interviews with artists/curators/thinkers, videos, and self-created films available entirely online.

• Outside In -- Despite being a relatively new organization, Outside In has become one of the leading names in providing access for both struggling artists and the public that wishes to discover them.  The website not only features over 2,000 artists, but provides insight into their world with exclusive stories.

• Spaces -- Spaces is a non-profit organization that is dedicated to the identification, documentation, and preservation of large-scale art environments, a subset of outsider art.  The website features a regularly-updated blog, as well as a comprehensive list of archives for further research and reference.

• ARTnews' outsider art tag --  ARTnews is one of (if not the) most widely-circulated art magazine in the world.  Looking through ARTnews' tag archives can provide some insight into the changes the genre has undergone within the past few years.  The tag goes as far back as 2003, featuring (as of now) 88 articles.  (Alternatively, if you feel like making a gamble, you can look into the Huffington Post's attempts to compile current news about outsider art.)

• Flavorwire's list of 10 intriguing outsider art documentaries -- This particular resource is a bit of a deviation from the others listed.  However, should you ever feel the need to break routine within the classroom, you can always feature or discuss one of these documentaries.  Each item on the list contains a brief and helpful overview of the documentary itself.

I hope you find these resources helpful.  Of course, I would be more than happy to provide more options should they be insufficient.  Best of luck with your new course and I hope you have a wonderful school semester.

Regards,
Jonah Santiago

Art Librarian/Archivist

Termina Library, University of Hyrule

101 Narnia, Neverland BT 00420

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ROLE: (1) Art librarian in a large university offering a PhD in art history

TASK: (2) Identify, describe and provide links to 10 essential current awareness websites for a new professor or curator who is researching for an exhibition on outsider art