Obsessive DrawingWhy do outsider artists make art?

The work in Obsessive Drawing, now open at the American Folk Art Museum in New York, could hardly be purer or more authentic. Seeing it is an exhilarating reminder of everything you ever thought (and learned better than to ask) about the relationship between art and madness and about the overwhelming compulsion to make art. It is independent of any ambition to be recognized (and compensated appropriately) as a professional artist. It is difficult to look at these works without sensing how much their creators were driven by necessity, or, as curator Brooke Davis Anderson comments, by the need "to help them cope with regret, fear, loss, or illness."

PRINTDISCUSSE-MAILRSSRECOMMEND...SINGLE PAGE

FacebookMySpace Mixx Digg Reddit del.icio.us Furl Ma.gnolia SphereStumbleUponCLOSE

Click here to read a slide-show essay about obsessive drawing.

PRINTE-MAILRECOMMEND...RSS

FacebookMySpace Mixx Digg Reddit del.icio.us Furl Ma.gnolia SphereStumbleUponCLOSE

SPONSORED CONTENT

• The Contact Sheet Comes Out of the Closet
  The photographer's secret rough draft is now on museum walls.
  Sarah Boxer | Nov. 25, 2009
• Hello, Dalí
  The surreal, high-concept showmanship of Urs Fischer.
  Ben Davis | Nov. 18, 2009
• Watteau the Wanderer
  What accounts for his enduring, elusive appeal?
  Christopher Benfey | Sept. 30, 2009
• Search for more Art articles
• Subscribe to the Art RSS feed
• View our complete Art archive