This paper uses the phenomenon of Outsider Art (Cardinal 1973; Rhodes 2020) to investigate how artworks and artists are qualified for entry into the art market. The art market is a network of practices that seek to solve the coordination problem of an atypical market where the value of an artwork and the status and identity of an artist are both highly uncertain (Beech, 2016). Outsider Art, work made by artists who have developed their practice without formal training and in social, economic or mental health circumstances that place them ‘outside’ the established contexts of an emerging artist, offers the researcher an opportunity to reveal the highly institutionalised character of the contemporary art market and investigate the often taken for granted practices through which art and the artist are constructed (Chen 2015; Yin 2014). Informed by literature on artist identity formation (Bain 2005; Lee, Fraser and Fillis 2018; Martin 2007), and the approaches of gallerists (Botti 2000; Gautier 2020; Moureau and Sagot-Duvauroux 2012), 16 in-depth interviews were conducted with curators, gallery owners and managers, outsider artists and one collector. Data was analysed using conceptual themes from the literature on materially and spatially constructed judgement devices (Karpick, 2010; Callon, 2021) in order to capture how a network of materials, people, spaces and language is enrolled into the performance of the primary art market. The idiosyncrasies of outsider art and artists are then applied to the identified set of practices in order to highlight the “tremendous collective energy” (Schultheis 2015:414) required to transform a painted canvas into a work of art, a creative person into an artist.

Authors:
Jonathan Gander, University of the Arts Singapore, Singapore

About the Presenter(s)
Dr Jonathan Gander is an Associate Professor and Head of the School of Creative Industries at Lasalle College of Arts, Unioversity of the Arts Singapore.

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