Have at it. I'm curious as to where we might end up, and my own feelings are uncertain.

Never liked it. Don't like the term, and I generally don't like what's going on when people use it a lot. Like anything else, art should be inclusive and open to all. This seems to create another tier of art, but I don't see that that makes anything better.

By definition, it's excluding people, under the pretense of being inclusive. "You shouldn't be here, but we are letting you in." Worse than that, it's lionising the "curators", for doing something that everyone should do - "Oh, you are on the outside, but I, I am allowing you in."

Do I think it's okay to categorize art into genres, including the art to which this term is referring? Sure.

Do I like the use of the word "outsider"? No. It sounds condescending.

CRAP

There's an irony to it because it brings in people from outside of a circle, kind of fetishizes their lack of connection, yet it "otherizes" which is alienating.

I'd think the term is less potent now after the democratization that came with the internet.

Also I don't think I can name a visual artist who was labeled outsider. Basquiat?

In music I think of Jandek or Daniel Johnston. I suppose the difference between outsider music and underground music is the underground folks are part of a community and the so-called outsider has been creating unaware of any scene?

Genres are tricky.

All art/music labels are at least a little stupid, but I get what it's going for. And while I can see it being interpreted as exclusionary, I personally see it as complimentary the same way if someone described my music as 'indie' or 'DIY'. I think higher of outsiders and weirdos than people who clearly have too much money and went to the right art/music schools..

Exploiting someone's mental illness or trauma for artistic credibility is crap, but I don't think that's exclusive to 'Outsider Art'.

NC I guess, but maybe I can be swayed.

I think about this a lot. Most PRF bands are "outsiders" in that we are not signed, not professionally trained, etc., but calling the output of small groups of rock fans with disposable income "art" might be stretching the definition of the term. As far as visual art, if it's at all experimental then I appreciate outsider art more than "insider" art because I feel like most well-heeled art school fancypantses are just blagging. If I'm going to look at something that looks like a pile of shit then it's much cooler if it is made by a random weirdo than someone who could be making commercial art.

According to Wikipedia:

Outsider Art
Outsider Artists

Maybe it used to be a useful term, however critical we might be of it, when art was marketed differently. Today it seems a useless term, and, anyone using it earnestly it is pretentious and should be ostracized.

Falsely suggests benign gatekeeping.

Gross.

It's an outdated term that basically just means untrained artist (no formal schooling, no apprenticeship, etc). I have a BFA and have always thought outsider art was a clunky term. I'm probably too ambivalent to vote on this one. I guess crap because it's a bit elitist.

My first thought was of Joe Coleman, who with whom I was once obsessed, along w/ so much of the Feral House constellation.

I think as a term it's tapping into the descriptive traditions of labels like Naive art or Art Brut - and to a lesser extent Fauvism - it seems fair to acknowledge that there are people operating apart from the social norms of the functioning art scene who are still creating work. If terms like this offer more people platforms to show their work, great.

In a more cohesive and less damaged society, we'd call this process giving a new face an opportunity, but here we are. Modernity is not short of outsiders...