Art: Liking it raw
2006; BMJ; Volume: 332; Issue: 7556 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
0959-8138
Autores Tópico(s)Empathy and Medical Education
ResumoAt first I thought, “How patronising to hang a bit of scribble by a psychiatric patient and call it art.” Then I realised I was looking at a work by Jean Dubuffet, an “insider” who collected and championed Art Brut and had a fascination with children's drawings. According to the Whitechapel Gallery, his work is a parody of modern urban existence, reminiscent of prehistoric cave drawings. Art Brut (raw art), or outsider art, refers to art created by psychiatric patients, criminals, self styled visionaries, mediums, and others on the fringes of society. It is potentially a term so wide that it could take in anyone from Beryl Cook to L S Lowry, any artist without the “insider's” formal training or connections to the art establishment. If you are prepared to immerse yourself in a world where reality takes a backseat, Inner Worlds Outside is effortlessly engaging. By showing modern masters alongside outsider artists, the Whitechapel Art Gallery is selling this exhibition as a unique approach to art (although exhibitions of this kind of art are not new—see BMJ 2002;324: 1222). Understandably the craftsmanship is of a variable standard, but this is hardly the point. The collection on display at the Whitechapel is quite unlike anything you see anywhere else, with images from prisoners and patients in mental hospitals rubbing shoulders with the furtive American artist Henry Darger (1892-1973), whose legacy of 7000 drawings was discovered only after his death.death. Figure 1 Untitled (Calico Roll) by Madge Gill Four large panoramic paintings by Darger—seemingly innocent images of numerous little girls set in an idyllic landscape—are the first thing that confronts visitors on entering the show. Closer inspection reveals something more sinister. Not only are some of the girls naked but they have male rather than female genitalia. Moving to a side room, there is a slide show of eccentric buildings and sculptures, mostly from the United States with others from Germany and Britain. There is a house built of bottles, another covered in shells, and a stretch limo covered in all manner of bric-a-brac. If the modern movement is about simplicity of line, this is about as far away from it as you can get. There's flair here. Trolleybus c 1995 by Willem van Genk, a Dutch collager, is made entirely with found objects and is a quirky metaphor of a childhood spent in an orphanage. The sheer brilliance of Von Stropp's Oestrum canvas is breathtaking—a disturbing monochrome nightmarish image that looks as if Hieronymus Bosh has been given an album cover to illustrate. It's worth visiting this exhibition for one piece alone. Madge Gill's searing and poignant Untitled (Calico Roll). Her intimate imagery, reminiscent of Biro scribble, is packed with haunted looking faces. It frightens, disturbs, and touches. An atmosphere of oppression, incarceration, and frustration hangs in the air.
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