Cosmic explosions, proto-Surrealism and names to remember — like the D.J. Raul Hardie and Anne Brown, the high point of our critic’s survey.
At this point you know “outsider art” when you see it. Made by someone self-taught or excluded from the mainstream — for whatever reason — it’s often obsessive, repetitive, brightly colored or composed of unusual materials. Once a challenge to the conventional canon, at this year’s 34th annual Outsider Art Fair, it’s starting to feel like just another marketing category.
As categories go, though, it’s a pretty elastic one, so the fair remains a bargain studded with genuine surprises. Its 68 galleries and nonprofits include international visitors, debut exhibitors and several over-the-top installations, like Shrine gallery’s exhibit of paintings by the artist Jon Serl (1894-1993) (A4), framed by reproduction wallpaper and the artist’s own battered easel, or the reconstructed store/home/studio of Susan Cianciolo (Run Store, A16).
There’s an atypical Martín Ramírez at Andrew Edlin Gallery (D17), peculiar 19th-century photo montages at Keith de Lellis Gallery (C10) and a group of exceptionally charming portrait paintings by a retired New England lawyer named Earle T. Merchant at Pulp (D23). And as always, of course, there’s the people watching. Here are some other highlights.