The open art museum St.Gallen shows art that is difficult to grasp. The museum collects, preserves and communicates Swiss “Naive Art“, “Art Brut” and “Outsider Art” by contemporary and deceased artists. The artists represented in the museum are amateurs and self-taught artists without academic artistic training. At least three temporary exhibitions and one collection exhibition are shown each year.

What is “Art Brut”?

Individual visionaries took an early interest in creating art beyond the academies and the art market. Around 1900, collections of works by patients were created at various psychiatric clinics (see the Morgenthaler Collection at Waldau near Bern).

This “pictorial art of the mentally ill”(Hans Prinzhorn, 1922) or later “state-bound art”(Leo Navratil, 1950s/1960s) was particularly popular in artistic avant-garde circles.

It also had a major influence on Jean Dubuffet (1901-1985). He coined the term “art brut” for this art in 1945 as an alternative concept to “art culturel”. Jean Dubuffet understood this to mean culturally untouched, “unformed” creation outside of an artistic tradition with the power of a “rough diamond”.

“Art Brut” in the broader sense

Jean Dubuffet’s term “Art Brut” encompasses not only works by people with mental illness, but also the creative expression of people on the margins of society: self-taught creators, social outsiders, people with cognitive impairments or those who work artistically out of an inner urge – regardless of art theories or an audience.

“Art Brut” is not a style in the classical sense, but an attitude: it stands for immediacy, authenticity and artistic expression beyond normative expectations. The works often defy unambiguous interpretation, but this is precisely why they are so intense and expressive.

This art challenges the established concept of art, not least because it shows that creativity and artistic power are not tied to academic training or social recognition.

Exemplary artists of the “Art Brut” movement

Some of the best-known representatives of “Art Brut” were often only discovered posthumously or recognized outside the established art scene:

• Adolf Wölfli (1864-1930), Switzerland: One of the earliest and most important representatives of “Art Brut”. Suffering from schizophrenia, Wölfli created a monumental oeuvre of drawings, collages and texts in the Waldau psychiatric clinic near Bern. Jean Dubuffet admired him deeply.
• Aloïse Corbaz (1886-1964), Switzerland: Her colourful, visionary works are characterized by a complex, romantic pictorial universe. She is one of the defining female voices of “Art Brut”.
• Augustin Lesage (1876-1954), France: A miner who claimed that his works were inspired by the voices of spirits. He created symmetrical, mandala-like paintings with astonishing precision.
• Henry Darger (1892-1973), USA: A reclusive janitor who created a 15,000-page epic with hundreds of illustrations. His work was only discovered after his death and is now considered a milestone of “Outsider Art”.