Outsider art exhibition at IMMA
An exhibition bringing works by some of the greatest 20th-century artists together with those of Outsider artists - individuals producing art from the "fringes of society" - opens to the public at the Irish Museum of Modern Art on Wednesday 26 July 2006.
Comprising some 140 works, 'Inner Worlds Outside' explores the many myths surrounding Outsider artists, showing the parallels between Insider and Outsider art and the impact of some unknown Outsiders on the work of many of the greatest artists of the past 100 years.
Since the early 20th-century, the terms Outsider Art and Art Brut have encouraged a problematic distinction between mainstream art and that created by artists with little or no knowledge of the wider art world.
This exhibition sets out to question this distinction by bringing together the work of modern masters such as Jean Dubuffet, James Ensor, Philip Guston and Joan Miró with that of a wide cross section of Outsiders, including Henry Darger, Madge Gill and Adolf Wölfli.
It takes the view that Insiders and Outsiders form two sides of the same modernist tendency, frequently sharing a common discourse connecting the visual arts to social sciences.
The exhibition is built around the Musgrave Kinley Outsider Art Collection, on loan to IMMA since 1998.
It has already been shown to critical acclaim at Fundación "la Caixa", Madrid, and at the Whitechapel Gallery, London, both co-organisers, with IMMA, of the show.
'Inner Worlds Outside' is co-curated by the distinguished academic and critic Jon Thompson with Monika Kinley and takes its title from a phrase by poet Rainer Maria Rilke, who championed intuition over the rational and romanticism over classicism.
The exhibition will be officially opened by the filmmaker and theatre director Alan Gilsenan at 6pm on Tuesday 25 July and continues at IMMA until 15 October.
