Beyond the fringe

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Surrealism is in the air, what with the Hayward and Max Ernst shows (reviewed in these pages last week), and it’s been lurking around in a different guise since April in an enthralling show at the Whitechapel which focuses on Outsider Art. Outsider Art, or Art Brut as Dubuffet originally termed it, is art made by ‘people free of artistic culture’; in other words, not artists, though the categories are increasingly blurred. It’s often the product of the mentally disturbed, of those beyond the fringes of society, who make drawings or paintings, sculpture or embroidery, which deal directly with their obsessions. They may not intend to make art, but their work is collected and often displayed as art.

Inner Worlds Outside at the Whitechapel (until 25 June) mixes up these Outsiders with real artists (such as Klee, Kandinsky and Guston) to produce an extremely effective range of imagery, rich enough to keep the imagination fuelled for a month.