Outsider...Folk...

mjp · Jul 1, 2008

Carterofmars said:
ya see something good came of this thread after all... :p

Yeah, your question was answered! Several times. Seems like you didn't particularly like the answer, but there you go. ;)

Pigeonholing art is pointless anyway. Pigeons don't have any taste.

james · Jul 1, 2008

There is also a segment of folk art called Prison Art or Jail Art. Cool stuff.---

i bought this from a prisoner at the angola prison rodeo. i couldn't afford NOT to...someone say somethin' about thread hijacking???

poptop · Jul 1, 2008

Paintings not labels

Carterofmars said:
Can Bukowski's paintings be classified as "Folk Art" in the category of Outsider Art?

I just came across this thread today. Like others, I personally don't care much for labels - I simply enjoy what I like. What some people might call 'Folk' art, I would call 'Primitive' art. Folk art expresses something universal about a culture or a people. Primitive artists are those who paint for the joy of painting simply to express themselves but may have limited skills as an artist, limited or no training (formal or otherwise) in the arts. They may also simply be terrible artists who have a desire to paint and somehow make a profit off it. A great deal of what some people call Outsider art falls into this category for me. While some see a colorful and unacademic painting full of charm - I see horrors and a lack of talent. It's no doubt a matter of personal taste.

The only reason to label art at all is for commercial reasons, which I think is what's driving your question and why there's some resistance to it. The question rings of profiteering without perhaps having a deeper understanding of what the man stood for, such as his artistic survival through writing and spontaneous creativity.

I think Bukowski himself didn't give a damn about labels. That's the difference between him and the commercial minded who are interested in labeling his art for the market place for people who may only know that Bukowski was a famous writer and little else about him and might invest in his paintings for that reason alone. My guess is that those who understand the man better would not need labels for what he did, such as Folk art. They are simply 'paintings' by Charles Bukowski and why not list them as such without the divisive, unnecessary and false commercial labels?

Bukowski seemed to paint as an expression of the moment but had little or no skills as a painter even if he might have taken some art classes in college. In many instances he globs on one layer of paint over another, or next to another, without letting the first layer dry. There are smears, mixtures and muddy colors everywhere - like he's on acid, a mess - and the only thing going for it is that he had the will to do it and was one of the greatest writers of modern (or ancient) times. Whatever art skills he learned in school seemed to have flown out the window in his I-don't-give-a-damn way, and I've seen very few of his muddy paintings that I've ever enjoyed. Maybe only one or two. I find it more interesting to contemplate where he was and what was going on around him at the time he painted it, rather than the painting itself.

On the other hand, as someone else has pointed out here, his line drawings are full of charm! They are clear, clean and spacious. They reveal the spirit of the man he was and a genuine talent for caricature. There's even genius in it. But if one is going to try to market him on Madison Ave. or in the art galleries, I would never call what he did Folk art. He didn't give a damn about "folks" in the usual sense of the word - of trying to raise them up, heal them, fix them, better society, be a deliberate representative of the down and out, the downtrodden, the bums he wrote about, or the women he f**ked. He was a primitive artist because whatever was in him had to come out for its own sake and he took joy in it, for whatever it was worth. I sincerely doubt that he would have ever described his paintings as Folk art. Would anyone? If so, maybe he was a Folk writer too. When has Bukowski ever been consigned as a Folk writer? It'll never happen. He belonged to no school of thought and no school of painting. These are simply paintings by Charles Bukowski and there's nothing wrong with that. Just my personal take on it.

Poptop

bospress.net · Jul 1, 2008

james said:
There is also a segment of folk art called Prison Art or Jail Art. Cool stuff.---

i bought this from a prisoner at the angola prison rodeo. i couldn't afford NOT to...someone say somethin' about thread hijacking???

Amazing. Kinda has a Munch feel to it.

Bill

Purple Stickpin · Jul 1, 2008

Carterofmars said:
I've posted to some poetry workshops online... think meter, sonnets 14 lines 10 syllables/ 5 feet per line, anapests, iambs, bull crap, etc. And those people HATE Bukowski, give him no credit.

I take your point, but do modern classical composers write like Beethoven, Brahms or even Bartok?

Hell no. I would peg those particular "poet traditionalists" as being the outsiders at this point. Times change, and they are not clever enough to figure out how to dissolve the cement that they are mired in.

Carterofmars · Jul 2, 2008

mjp said:
Yeah, your question was answered! Several times. Seems like you didn't particularly like the answer, but there you go. ;)

Pigeonholing art is pointless anyway. Pigeons don't have any taste.

:rolleyes:

Rekrab · Jul 2, 2008

For the ultimate outsider artist, check out Henry Darger. Writer and painter and hospital janitor. I don't know if it's significant, but the major collection of his work is in a folk art museum (in NYC I think.) Based on the little I've read, outsider art is simply art by someone outside of the academic/gallery world and folk art is art made by the average person without pretentions of any kind. Seems like they are not all that different, although from what I've seen, outsider art tends to be edgy and intelligent and folk art tends to be predictable and safe, so I'd put Bukowski in the outsider box if I had to pick a box for him.

mjp · Jul 2, 2008

Rekrab said:
I'd put Bukowski in the outsider box if I had to pick a box for him.

Luckily we've already got a box for him; WRITER.

esart · Jul 2, 2008

My dog is an Outsider Artist too, as is my mom and my neighbor's cat.

james said:
i bought this from a prisoner at the angola prison rodeo. i couldn't afford NOT to...

You got a good one there. I'd like to post some of our pieces too. Let me take some pics with my nifty camera... BRB

esart · Jul 2, 2008

This is a South American "mola" that I just happened to find behind a toilet in the junk shop that I turned into a gallery/studio in San Pedro.

I bought this from a young resident named Mandy at the Harbor View House, a live-in facility for mentally ill folks. There is a great art program there that allows residents to express themselves through painting and drawing.

I bought this for MJP's birthday one year from an art fair in LA. It is by Clint Griffin, and outsider artist in Canada.

This is a horrible picture I took in the dark of a painting by South Carolina, Outsider artist Richard Burnside.

Purple Stickpin · Jul 2, 2008

esart: not only is mjp a lucky man, he's a very lucky man. And you have a great eye. I suppose you are lucky too, but you remind me of my wife and what she has to put up with. ;)

Art is so damn subjective; I really like what you've posted, but I don't love it. But it's very good in it's own way. It doesn't matter what category it fits into, if y'all like it.