Following in the footsteps of such pioneering artists as Jean Dubuffet and Arnulf Rainer and inspired by innovative exhibitions like The Encyclopedic Palace for the 2013 Venice Biennale and Outliers and American Vanguard Art at the National Gallery of Art in 2018, contemporary artists are embracing and collecting the raw art of self-taught artists beyond the levels that they have in the past. Exhibiting the works that attract them and telling the stories of why they find it appealing, Relishing the Raw offers a fresh point of view on collecting Outsider Art.
Contemporary artists lending work from their collections include Polly Apfelbaum, Maurizio Cattelan, John Drury, Nicole Eisenman, Jenny Holzer, KAWS, Chris Martin, Nicolas Party, Julian Schnabel, Cindy Sherman, James Siena, Laurie Simmons, Terry Winters and others. They are lending paintings, sculptures, photographs and drawings by such notable self-taught artists as Vahakn Arslanian, Morton Bartlett, Hawkins Bolden, Eugene Von Bruenchenhein, James Castle, Curtis Cuffie, Howard Finster, Lee Godie, William Hawkins, Daniel Johnston, Mary T. Smith, Janet Sobel, Miroslav Tichý, Mose Tolliver, Joseph Yoakum, and many more.
Paul Laster is an artist, critic, curator, editor, and lecturer. He is a contributing editor at ArtAsiaPacific and Whitehot Magazine of Contemporary Art and writer for Time Out New York, Galerie Magazine, Harper’s Bazaar Arabia, Architectural Digest, Cultured, Garage Magazine, Ocula, ArtPulse, Observer, Conceptual Fine Arts and Glasstire. He was Artkrush’s founding editor, started The Daily Beast's art section and was art editor of Russell Simmons’ Oneworld Magazine, as well as an adjunct curator of photography at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, now MoMA PS1.