Contemporary art is a premium alternative asset class that attracts ambitious investors who are looking to outperform the major indices and diversify their holdings into an uncorrelated sector of global markets. Within this alternative asset class lies yet another alternative: outsider art.
Outsider art has a rich history dating back to the first half of the 20th century, when avant-garde artists such as Wassily Kandinsky and Jean Dubuffet became fascinated by the art of the neurodiverse, children, and peasants. They saw in these artworks a purity, originality, and intensity that contrasted with the academic and conventional art of their time. Dubuffet coined the term “art brut” (raw art) to describe these artworks, and collected thousands of them in his personal museum which he gifted to the city of Lausanne in 1976.
The category of outsider art encompasses artists without formal education and commercial gallery representation. Oftentimes, these artists also experience psychosis, have a serious disability, or live on the margins of society due to a pronounced personal idiosyncrasy. All of these factors combine to make outsider art particularly difficult to collect. However, for the astute collector who knows where to look and how to approach this market anomaly, outsider art promises an incredibly rewarding journey filled with improbable interlocutors and the possibility of outsized returns.
Henry Darger, Christmas seal girls (1958). Watercolor, pencil and stamps on paper pasted on cardboard
Difficulties with Valuation
The investment opportunity presented by outsider art is especially challenging to discern because it confounds fundamental criteria which are commonly used to appraise art. For instance, outsider artists’ manner of self-representation is devoid of the markers of value found in the CVs of professional artists. Art collectors and their advisors routinely assess artists’ potential by virtue of where they have been educated and where they have exhibited, and these factors combine to create a valuation band for the artist.
Conversely, outsider artists are without academic qualifications and list of gallery exhibitions. The absence of institutional acceptance leads to a wild market without a reliable price floor. For collectors, that’s a very daunting prospect to contend with.
However, the history of extraordinarily low entry points on prolific outsider artists can make the upside potential highly compelling to collectors with an appetite for risk and a commitment to stewarding this vein of artistic expression that is innocently unversed in art history and the conventions of the contemporary art canon.
Increased Recognition
It is common for the most prolific of outsider artists to go virtually unnoticed by the art world during their lifetimes. Nevertheless, a contingent of devoted curators and outsider art aficionados have raised the profile of standout talents through exhibitions and critical attention. Outsider art gained recognition in the 1970s, when the British art critic Roger Cardinal introduced the term “outsider art” to encompass a wider range of artists and artworks that did not fit into established categories. In 1979, he and Victor Musgrave organized an exhibition called Outsiders at the Hayward Gallery which featured works by artists such as Adolf Wölfli, Henry Darger, Madge Gill, and Nek Chand.
