The Boundaries of Art

What is art? What are its criteria? Is the acceptance of the art world a necessary condition for art? What are the borders and boundaries of art? Maybe it is time to have a closer look at the invisible attitudes that separate professional art from Outsider Art.

Outsider Art has begun attracting more and more attention in Finland, both among artists and the art public. The exhibition to be organised next summer at Kiasma will present a broad selection of international and Finnish Outsider Art, exploring the edges of contemporary art and the idiosyncratic art produced outside the mainstream.

One of the themes of the exhibition is the difference between outsider artists and artists operating on the margin yet within the mainstream, as well as between amateur art and Outsider Art. The exhibition will also take a look at the history of Outsider Art.

Relegated to a position on the vague periphery of the art world, Outsider Art is replete with amazing handiwork, exuberant fantasy, intellectual insight, humour and social criticism, as well as agony, traumas, fears, exclusion and obsessive manias.

Art Brut, Outsider Art – or DIY Art as it is commonly known in Finland – is a subject of academic research abroad, where there are also museums dedicated to this art form. We hope that In Another World will bring Outsider Art into the art discourse also in Finland.

STORIES ABOUT THE ARTISTS

In Another World presents not only works of art, but also their makers, whose personal worlds are present in the exhibition both as documents and texts written by the artists. One of the featured artists is Petri Martikainen, a younger generation self-taught contemporary folk artist from Finland.

Petri Martikainen writes, sculpts, paints and builds. He uses recycled and waste materials, seasoning his creations with trinkets and his boundless visual imagination. Martikainen is interested in theosophy and mysticism, foreign cultures, art and customs. His influences include India, South America and China, as well as Christianity, Hinduism and Confucianism.

In Another World
14 May – 21 Aug