Promises of the fringes – blog by Luca Bruls

On my final day in Lausanne I made a visit to le Collection de l’Art Brut, where lush crafts of ‘outsider art’ fill up the three storied building. A Bordeaux red display sign reads: “Art Brut is made by self-taught people who often live on the margins of society, either as rebellious souls or as beings who are impervious to normative and collective values. Among them are loners, outcasts, resident from psychiatric hospitals, inmates, seniors, and whose creative expression exists for itself, without any concern for public criticism or what other people might think.”

Wandering through the dim lighted halls of the museum, I read the stories of the artists whom all, in one way or another, challenged the status quo. As non-conformists, as untrained practitioners,as anomalies they make everything usual become alive. They intrigue and promise a charm of what life on the fringe entails. They seem to scream “no!” to a textbook path of life.

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