The Outsider, Art and Humour

227 Pages·2020·17.193 MB·English

by  Paul Clements

The Outsider, Art and Humour
This cross-disciplinary book, situated on the periphery of culture, employs humour to
better comprehend the arts, the outsider and exclusion, illuminating the ever-changing
social landscape, the vagaries of taste and limits of political correctness.
Each chapter deals with specific themes and approaches – from the construct of out-
sider and complexity of humour, to Outsider Art and spaces – using various theoretical
and analytical methods. Paul Clements draws on humour, especially from visual arts and
culture (and to a lesser extent literature, film, music and performance), as a tool of ridi-
cule, amongst other discourses, employed by the powerful but also as a weapon to
satirize them. These ambiguous representations vary depending on context, often
assimilated then reinterpreted in a game of authenticity that is poignant in a world of
facsimile and ‘fake news’. The humour styles of a range of artists are highlighted to
reveal the fluidity and diversity of meaning which challenges expectations and at its best
offers resistance and, crucially, a voice for the marginal.
This book will be of particular interest to scholars in art history, cultural studies, fine
art, humour studies and visual culture.
Paul Clements is Lecturer at Goldsmiths College, University of London. He is the author
of The Creative Underground: Art, Politics and Everyday Life (Routledge, 2017) and
Charles Bukowski, Outsider Literature, and the Beat Movement (Routledge, 2013).
Cover image credit: Marek Kolasinski, Millennium Bridge Greetings, 2018, Ben Wilson,
gumpic(paintonchewinggum),6x3cms,MillenniumBridge,London.PhotographbyPaul
Clements.
Routledge Advances in Art and Visual Studies
This series is our home for innovative research in the fields of art and visual studies. It
includes monographs and targeted edited collections that provide new insights into visual
culture and art practice, theory, and research.
The Digital Interface and New Media Art Installations
Phaedra Shanbaum
Ecocriticism and the Anthropocene in Nineteenth-Century Art and Visual Culture
Edited by Maura Coughlin and Emily Gephart
Popularisation and Populism in the Visual Arts
Attraction Images
Edited by Anna Schober
Dialogues Between Artistic Research and Science and Technology Studies
Edited by Henk Borgdorff, Peter Peters, and Trevor Pinch
Contemporary Art and Disability Studies
Edited by Alice Wexler and John Derby
The Outsider, Art and Humour
Paul Clements
The Contemporary Art Scene in Syria
Social Critique and an Artistic Movement
Charlotte Bank
The Iconology of Abstraction
Non-Figurative Images and the Modern World
Edited by Krešimir Purgar
Liquid Ecologies in Latin American and Caribbean Art
Edited by Lisa Blackmore and Liliana Gómez
For a full list of titles in this series, please visit https://www.routledge.com/Routledge-
Advances-in-Art-and-Visual-Studies/book-series/RAVS
The Outsider, Art and Humour
Paul Clements
Firstpublished2020
byRoutledge
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LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData
Names:Clements,Paul,1959-author.
Title:Theoutsider,artandhumour/PaulClements.
Description:NewYork:Routledge,2020.|
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
Identifiers:LCCN2019058866(print)|LCCN2019058867(ebook)|
ISBN9780367468224(hardback)|ISBN9781003031369(ebook)
Subjects:LCSH:Difference(Philosophy)inart.|Other(Philosophy)inart.|
Arts,Modern--Themes,motives.|Witandhumorinart.|Witandhumor--Socialaspects.
Classification:LCCNX650.D54C592020(print)|
LCCNX650.D54(ebook)|DDC700.9/04--dc23
LCrecordavailableathttps://lccn.loc.gov/2019058866
LCebookrecordavailableathttps://lccn.loc.gov/2019058867
ISBN:978-0-367-46822-4(hbk)
ISBN:978-1-003-03136-9(ebk)
TypesetinSabon
byTaylor&FrancisBooks
To those without a sense of humour

Contents
List of figures viii
Acknowledgements x
1 Introduction 1
2 Approaches to Humour and Laughter 13
3 The Construct of Outsider: Media Labelling, ‘Othering’ and
Excluded Minds 44
4 The Construct of Outsider: Identity, the Body and Representation 61
5 Humorous Representations of the Outsider: Hybridity, Utility and
the Carnivalesque 81
6 Representations of Humour by Marginal Artists 109
7 Creative Outsider Spaces and Dark Heterotopias 142
8 Transgression, Spectacle and Political Correctness 163
9 Afterthoughts 184
Bibliography 186
Index 201
Figures
1.1 BILL POSTERS IS INNOCENT, 2018, graffiti, stencil on brick. Sydney
Street, London. Photo by Paul Clements 2018 2
1.2 Golconda, 1953, René Magritte, oil on canvas, 80 x 100.3cm. Paul Hester
photographer. The Menil Collection, Houston 4
2.1 Basquiat Mural, 2017, Banksy, paint on concrete. Golden Lane, Barbican,
London. Photo by Paul Clements 2017 25
2.2 The Little Pastry Cook, 1922/3, Chaïm Soutine, oil on canvas, 73 x 54cm.
Musée Orangerie, Paris 37
2.3 Flux-Smile-Machine, 1970, George Maciunas, printed photograph and label
on plastic box, 9.3 x 12 x 3.2cm. Harvard Art Museum, Cambridge, MA 39
2.4 WARS R US, n.d. mural, paint on brick. Kensal Road, London. Photo by
Paul Clements, 2018 41
2.5 Escaping Criticism, 1874, Pere Borrell del Caso, oil on canvas, 72 x 62cm,
Collection of the Banco de España, Madrid 42
4.1 STOP MAKING STUPID Artists FAMOUS, n.d. graffiti, stencil on board,
Mile End Road, London. Photo by Paul Clements 2018 65
4.2 Kartenspieler (Card Players), 1920, Otto Dix, drypoint on copperplate
paper, 33 x 28.4cm paper. The George Economou Collection, Athens 73
5.1 Entartete Musik, signed by Hans Ziegler, programme cover for the
exhibition at Düsseldorf, 1938. Wiener Library, London 90
5.2 Busker, 2018, outside the cathedral, Santiago de Compostela, Spain. Photo
by Paul Clements 2018 91
5.3 The Fight between Carnival and Lent, 1559/60, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, oil
on panel, 118 x 164cm. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna 103
6.1 Mr Razewitz,1950, Friedrich Schröder-Sonnenstern, crayon drawing, 21x
28cm. Gallerie Brockstedt, Hamburg, Germany 124
6.2 Shrine with Headlamps, 1955–63, Tressa Prisbrey, detail of Bottle Village
1972, Simi Valley, California. Photo by Seymour Rosen, 1972. Rosen/
SPACES—Saving and Preserving Arts and Cultural Environments 126
6.3 Careful You Don’t Become That Sad Old Queen, 2007, Jim Bloom, mixed
media on cardboard, 48 x 47cm. Outsider Folk Art Gallery/Jim Bloom 2018 128
6.4 MaeRose,RuadhandDanielle,MillenniumBridgeGreetings,2018,Ben
Wilson,gumpic(paintonchewinggum),6x3cm.PhotobyPaulClements2018 130
6.5 Bonsai Liberation Front, 2011, Elfo, site-specific spray paint on building,
near Verona, Italy. Photograph by Elfo 2011 131
Figures ix
7.1 Béla Kun Memorial, 1986, Imre Varga, cut sheet metal, Szoborpark,
Budapest. Photo by Paul Clements 2010 149
7.2 The gravestone of Patrick Caulfield, 2005, Highgate Cemetery, London.
Photo by Paul Clements 2018 153
7.3 Millie and Christine McCoy, 1867, photograph by Eisenmann. Wikimedia
Commons/Wellcome Trust 156
7.4 DinnerTimeonF Wing,1996,PaulClements,oilonboard,MuseumofLondon 159
7.5 Diet for Health and Strength, 1988, name withheld. Personal letter and
dictated menu. Private correspondence 161
8.1 Hangman’s Field, 2018, Matthew Nightingale, mixed media, 122 x 82cm.
Koestler Trust/Matthew Nightingale 168
8.2 Hangman’s Field, detail of the scaffold 169
8.3 Extinction Rebellion Protestival, April 16, 2019, Waterloo Bridge, London.
Photo by Paul Clements 177