The field of outsider art continues to expand its parameters, encompassing not only the output of self-taught artists, visionary artists, folk artists, vernacular artists, and artists with developmental, mental, and physical disabilities, but that of virtually any maker working outside the mainstream, whether by choice or by circumstance. At the same time, however, outsider art is going mainstream itself: in recent years it has been a focus of, or significant presence in, institutional exhibitions and biennials such as the upcoming Minnie Evans show at the Whitney and the 2024 Venice Biennale.
Perhaps most tellingly, it is attracting attention from the art market as well, with Christie’s even holding an annual auction dedicated to work by outsiders. In line with these developments, and somewhat paradoxically, the Outsider Art Fair has become both more clearly a stakeholder in a growing market category and, at the same time, more wide-ranging than ever in its definition of “outsider.”
This year’s installations run the gamut from a resurrection of Susan Cianciolo’s Run Store (2000), which features clothing and home goods created by the indie fashion designer and 40 of her friends, students, and past collaborators, to the Gallery of Everything’s solo booth of works by self-taught Gullah artist Sam Doyle (1906–1985).
As it does every year, the fair has likewise made room for a variety of price points and approaches. Ricco Maresca’s spare installation of big-ticket pieces by Bill Traylor, Martín Ramírez, and Henry Darger, for example, rubs shoulders with Keith de Lellis’s crowded, salon-style hang of affordable vernacular photographs, fashion illustrations, and other works on paper, including an astonishing early silkscreen by photographer Roy DeCarava. Elsewhere, a scholarly presentation of proto-Surrealist art at Cavin Morris exists comfortably beside the exuberantly chaotic booths of workshops like New York’s Fountain House Gallery.
Below are five more standout booths.
