C105 review

Dublin, Cork, Sligo: Outsider Art in Ireland

John the Painter: Jet Plane, Blue, Red, Yellow, Green, Boxes, Arrows, on Grand Parade, Chinese Version (detail), 1997, gouache on brown paper, 214 x 511; cm; courtesy IMMA

Through locating the Musgrave Kinley Collection of Outsider Art, making it accessible to researchers, and ensuring that works from it have been made available to other galleries within Ireland, IMMA has stimulated an interest in Outsider Art as well as raising the question, is there Outsider Art in Ireland?

By accepting the donation of a large work by John the Painter, following the acquisition with a solo exhibition, and presenting the artist as a native Outsider, IMMA established a prototype and their curatorial policy towards him as a guideline that other galleries might adopt. IMMA stressed, however, that John was being given such a prestigious exhibition not because he was a prototype but because his painting was of such a high standard. That John is a long-term inmate within a secure psychiatric ward caused IMMA a number of curatorial headaches. Being a ward of court, John must assume an alias, but his first instinct has always been to sign his work with his birth-name. Therefore IMMA had to deselect works that John had boldly autographed, thereby causing a severe diminution in the presentation of John's innate talent. That John himself had no say in the way his work was presented, and that he continues to have no control over his future as a practising artist highlights his vulnerability as a person who is totally reliant on others to mediate for him and further validates his classification as an Irish Outsider Artist.

Constant: Animaux, 1949, oil on canvas, 84.5 x 69 cm; courtesy ABN AMRO Collection/IMMA

IMMA has followed John the Painter with The tail that wags the dog and COBRA and we must assume this is not entirely coincidental. That John paints in an expressionistic manner, unconsciously reflecting COBRA, provides us with an opportunity to draw comparisons between the innate art of an intuitive painter and that of a group of articulate rebels who deliberately chose to communicate through an art-brut style. COBRA was a reaction against the type of bourgeois taste associated with Fascism.

Paul Duhem, Untitled, gouache on paper, 34.5 x 24 cm; on loan to IMMA from the Musgrave Kinley Collection of Outsider Art; courtesy IMMA;

That their central propelling force, Asger Jorn, was active in the communist underground during WWII and that COBRA espoused socialist ideals through an international art language indicate the political nature of their art and philosophy. COBRA's tactic was to attack the European bourgeoisie by poisoning their cultural and aesthetic standards. Very effectively they appropriated the artistic styles of children, schizophrenics and naïves, compelling us, fifty years later, to draw analogies between COBRA and artists who are now known as Outsiders.

Above: Asger Jorn, La lune et les animaux, 1950, oil on chipboard, 47 x 60.5 cm; collection Alechinsky, Bougival, Pierre Alechinsky, ADAGP, Paris; photo: André Morain, Paris; courtesy IMMA

The curators of COBRA have not concealed these political and cultural connections and have brought together a collection of paintings, sculptures, publications, drawings and prints that clearly demonstrate the anger, sense of anarchy, outrageous humour and visceral quality of this collaboration which flared so energetically for 1001 nights. That IMMA has presented COBRA in the New Galleries, annexed from the main building, permits a rare opportunity to enter the realm of the anti-establishment.

The Tail that wags the dog implies a direct relationship between Outsider Art and COBRA, now perceived as integral to the established artworld. This rigorously curated exhibition from the Musgrave Kinley Collection defines precisely Outsider Art as a genre and not an umbrella term. Monika Kinley has selected sixty-one works in various media, supported by biographical texts in three binders. This method of presentation assists us in clarifying why an artist might be considered an Outsider by applying strict principles. If we are confused by style or the very ordinariness of a work we can consult the artist's biographical details which clarify their Outsider credentials.

Above: Tom Walsh: The Shandon man meets the goldie fish after twenty pints of porter, 1999, watercolour on paper59 x 50 cm; courtesy Crawford Municipal Gallery;

Irish Outsider Art curated by Alannah Hopkin illustrates the hazards of shoe-horning artists into an inappropriate classification. Only one of these, John the Painter, can justifiably be placed in this category. Hopkin's choice of thirteen autodidacts certainly provides an insight into a variety of styles and working practices, but her imprecise definition of Outsider Art - art created outside the mainstream of the contemporary art scene - fails to recognise that there are philosophical, ideological and stylistic differences between Outsiders and naïves in particular. Although Tom Walsh deploys a decorative naïve style, his professional attitude and traditional working methods place him unreservedly in the mainstream alongside Bill Griffin, another artist included here. James Dixon and the current Tory Island painters would never be included in Monika Kinley's or IMMA's definition of Outsider Art because they are demonstrably naïves in attitude and style.

Suzanne Woods, curator of flock, gaggle and herd, has included painted sculpture by the late John Baker in her grouping of four artists who depict animals. Although John Baker would readily conform to Hopkin's loose definition of an Outsider, Woods asserts no such claim. John Baker was certainly a naïve artist but here his direct portrayals are presented alongside mainstream artists and very much in accordance with our expectations and aspirations of a pluralist society.

Peter Haining is a mixed-media artist currently engaged in a ten-year, Ireland-based project which includes the documentation of Irish naïve art, folk art, and outsider art.

John Baker: Dog, carved and painted wood; courtesy Model Arts and Nyland Gallery

John the Painter, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, February - June 2003; curated by Catherine Marshall

COBRA: Copenhagen Brussels Amsterdam, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, July - September 2003; curated by Peter Shields and Roger Malbert

The tail that wags the dog: Outsider Art in the Expressionist Tradition, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, July - January 2004; curated by Monika Kinley

Irish Outsider Art, Crawford Municipal Art Gallery, Cork, July - August 2003; curated by Alannah Hopkin

flock, gaggle and herd, Model Arts and Niland Gallery, Sligo, June - August 2003; curated by Suzanne Woods

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