Venice Biennale 2013: Outsider art is in
- Published
The art world is about to get it in the neck from lesser known artists
The big trend emerging from this year's Venice Biennale is that outsider art has become the latest art world fashion and passion.
Work that has been produced by unknown artists operating outside the established market and institutions with little or no formal training is being lauded by collector's dealers and curators here, as art that has a refreshing honesty and directness.
It is, I suspect, a reaction against the increasing commodification of art, the result of a blooming market fuelled by the new ultra wealthy, profiting from economies new emerging from around the world.
Pavilion after pavilion contains sculptures and paintings that should have no connection with the formal history of art and are often flights of fancy produced by introverts and social outcasts carrying out an internal monologue.
You can't move here for child-like line drawings and naive paintings as the corporate art world seeks a purer unsullied voice.
From the portrait produced by imprisoned soldiers in Jeremy Deller's British Pavilion to random and eccentric offerings from the Museum of Everything, Venice Biennale 2013 is the moment where the outsiders found they have been invited to the most glamorous party being held in the most beautiful city in the Adriatic.
And ironically, in the process becoming part of the global art market.