I recently was in Chicago and visited a gallery called Intuit: The Center of Intuitive and Outsider Art. 'Outsider art' is typically work by artists that have not been formally trained and exist as 'outsiders' to the traditional gallery scene and/or art market. This particular show exhibited the work of Christopher Hipkiss, who has done some enormous, detailed, and wonderfully troubling work. There was also an installation replicating the room Chicago native Henry Darger lived in - but no way could it have been that orderly! Darger was a recluse savant artist who created the staggering 15,000+ page illustrated novel The Story of the Vivian Girls and has received significant posthumous (and controversial) fame since he died in the 70's, when his work was discovered. Seattle's free and excellent Frye Museum had a show of his work in 2006.
Outsider art encompasses a wide and varying circle of creativity ranging from folk art to so-called art brut to the art of the insane to work of the self-taught, and as a result, can be difficult to categorize or identify. Nevertheless, it has become very popular because of the unique, unfettered, and visionary perspectives that these artists can provide. Some other places to see outsider art: right here in Seattle is the Garde Rail Gallery, in Baltimore there is the American Visionary Museum , and in Europe the Prinzhorn Collection and the Adolf Wolffi Foundation, amongst many, many others nationally and internationally.
Tons of books on artists in this area are in the library - search for 'outsider art' - come by to check them out!
