Outsider Art

I don't like Outsider Art. I know that isn't necessarily the most popular opinion in many art circles, but I just don't like anything about it. I understand the conceptual appeal of looking at the art of someone who has never seen visual art before. How would someone represent certain things visually if they have no prior examples to work off of? Perhaps the traditional art education system arrests the creativity of an artist. Perhaps teaching perspective prevents an artist from visualizing more creative ways to represent space. The concept is interesting. But the reality is not. If the Outsider Art I've seen is any indication, it usually just looks like someone who sucks at drawing just tried to draw what they saw (like the image to the left) and did a poor job. If every Outsider Art exhibit promised some sort of strange new take on how to represent space on a flat surface, I'd be interested. But it seems like the result is always some shitty attempt at perspective, the kind of attempt I would have made as a kid before my Grandfather taught me about converging lines and vanishing points. I know another big part of Outsider Art is that the artists were/are often in insane asylums, but isn't that just fascination with the mind of insane people? People aren't interested in their use of color and form and space in that instance, they are interested in what is in the brains of these people.

Maybe I am biased after spending 4 years in art school and the rest of my life since then as a professional designer. But I can't think of any other profession that would ever appreciate the work of amateurs on the same level as the work of professionals. How much music do you listen to that wasn't written by a professional songwriter, or recorded by someone who has never used a mixing board? I did hear a song by someone who'd never heard any kind of traditional music before, and guess what, it kind of just sounded like shitty music. Don't get me wrong, it isn't like I'm saying that all visual art has to be the Sistine Chapel or it's shit. But Pablo Picasso had perfect technique at thirteen years old, and then moved on to different forms of representation. If you can show me some Outsider Art that is better than Les Demoiselles d'Avignon or Nude Descending a Staircase, then maybe I'll change my mind. Until then, I'll stick with Picasso and Duchamp.