Break on Through (from the Outside):

The Rise of Outsider Art

Sotheby’s Institute of Art and Stropheus present an evening with insiders and experts on the flourishing of Outsider Art and the specific challenges of outsider artists and their immediate support circle.

Sotheby’s Institute of Art, 570 Lexington Ave, New York, NY 10022

Panelists

• Andrew Edlin, CEO of the Outsider Art Fair; founder and president, Andrew Edlin Gallery
• Edward M. Gómez, senior editor, Raw Vision; art critic, historian & curator of outsider art
• Scott Ogden, founder and director of Shrine, a Lower East Side gallery focused on outsider art
• Daniel Swanigan Snow, Brooklyn-based self-taught artist
• Dr. Richard M. Lehun, Esq., attorney focused on artist-gallerist relations, agency, and art transactions

Moderator

• Judith B. Prowda, Esq., Faculty, MA Art Business, Sotheby’s Institute of Art-New York

Topics explored will include cultural relevance, critical recognition, representing outsider art/outsider artists, as well as copyright, collections management, catalogue raisonné, agency relationships, and legacy planning.

Tune into Sotheby’s Institute of Art Facebook live stream here

About Outsider Art

The term “outsider art,” which was coined in 1972 by the British art historian Roger Cardinal, is used to label a range of unusual art forms produced by self-taught art-makers who tend to be situated, either by choice or as a result of varied circumstances, on the margins of mainstream society and culture.

As a general catchall term, nowadays “outsider art” is used to refer to the related and sometimes overlapping genre categories of art brut (unique art forms created outside the academic tradition and without reference to established art history), outsider art and self-taught art (a much broader, contemporary term referring to works produced by unschooled art-makers of many kinds, including the creators of folk art and what used to be known as “naïf art”).

In recent years, increasingly, outsider artworks have been shown in major museum exhibitions and have entered notable public and private collections. Now more than 25 years old and an institution in its own right, the annual Outsider Art Fair in New York and its newer sister fair in Paris have played a large role in validating the status of self-taught artists and celebrating the diversity of their achievements.

As outsider art has gained recognition in the marketplace, legal challenges confronting outsider artists and their estates have grown in complexity to ensure that their artistic output is sustainable in the long term.