I started using the term “urban outsider” in 2003, which was when I began to exhibit my work. My thought was/is that an urban outsider artist is:

1) An educated self-taught artist working outside the gallery system and instead utilizing the “sub-gallery system” of ‘First Friday’-type venues such as restaurants and retail locations for whom art is not a primary commodity.

2) This artist may or may not be attempting to break into the mainstream art world - though I personally would like to make my passion my revenue generator.

3) The artist is attempting to follow their own lines of inspiration, but is not creating art strictly for their own amusement. So they seek some sort of recognition outside of their creative space.

4) They are distinguished from other streams or flavors of the ‘Outsider Movement’ by lack of ‘Visionary’, ‘Art Brut’, and ‘Art Naive’ distinguishment…. i.e. they don’t experience visions or religious revelations which lead them to produce art, they aren’t idiot savants, they aren’t mental patients, they aren’t hermits producing art with serious primitive elements, they aren’t folk artists.

5) These artists live in the mainstream of life, but in their purest form aren’t plugged into the ‘art world’ support system.

6) Perhaps the ‘urban outsider’ is what was formerly/currently termed as the ’self-taught amateur artist’. They seek to somehow be compared and compete for sales with formally trained artists (who use their connections and interactions with those associated with the ‘gallery system’ (print media critics, gallery owners, gallery customers, literati, etc) to advance their careers).

7) The urban outsider can morph into a ‘mainstream artist’ when their work is recognized and collected/promoted/sold by the ‘gallery system’ because they are now accepted into the same arena in which the formally trained artists compete.

They can still be an urban outsider artist even after discovery and commercial trade of their work, but many do not remain so - instead choosing to go mainstream. They aren’t idiots after all. If something which is your passion is commercially successful, you go with it…

I’d appreciate your thoughts……

Just reading this interview with jaramusch … it said something about “quirky” and “independent”. I think it’s all just about having to classify everything, otherwise how would we know what it was about? :|

Anyway I’ve decided i’d quite like to be an “outsider” because i hate the idea of being an “insider”.

Money will destroy everything we love eventually …

how’s that for a paranoid rant!