The exhibition Everyday imagining: New Perspectives on Outsider art will be on at the Ian Potter Museum of Art, 1 October 2020 - 18 January 2015.

The exhibition will feature the work of artists Andrew Blythe, Kelly Greaves, Julian Martin, Jack Napthine, Lisa Reid, Martin Thompson and Terry Williams.

The term ‘Outsider art’ was coined by British art historian Roger Cardinal in 1974 expanding on the 1940s French concept of art brut—artworks made by the institutionalised mentally ill—to include artworks made by folk artists and those who are self-taught, disabled, or on the edges of society.

The work of Outsider artists is often interpreted as expressing a unique inner vision unsullied by social or cultural influences. Everyday imagining: new perspectives on Outsider art counters this view by presenting contemporary Outsider artists whose works reveal their proactive engagement with the everyday world through artworks that focus on lived experience.

Curator, Joanna Bosse, says the exhibition questions this key interpretive bias of outsider art that is a legacy of its origins in art brut.

In the last decade there has been much debate about the term ‘outsider art’: who does it define? What are the prerequisite conditions for its production? What is it outside of, and who decides? This exhibition doesn’t seek to resolve these ambiguities or establish boundaries, but looks beyond definitions to challenge a key assumption underlying contemporary interpretations of outsider art.

An international conference Contemporary Outsider art: the global context will be held at the University of Melbourne, 23-26 October. More information here: http://melbourneartnetwork.com.au/2014/09/24/conference-contemporary-outsider-art-the-global-context/

Exhibition Dates: 1 October 2020 - 18 January 2021

The Ian Potter Museum of Art The University of Melbourne | Swanston Street (between Elgin & Faraday sts), Parkville

Website: www.art-museum.unimelb.edu.au

Opening Hours: Tuesday to Friday 10am - 5pm: Saturday and Sunday 12 - 5pm