THE PRICE OF ART BRUT

Whether we deplore the fact or not, Art Brut is currently a part of the market with fine art. In recent years it has even become fashionable. Every year, Outsider Art Fair in New York attracts an increasing numer of people. Frequently, one can notice works of Art Brut at public auctions. We find them not only in specialized galleries but they are also exhibited by more general art dealers, ready to diversify their offer.
Very often, the market favours those prestigious products, which are calibrated to satisfy the demand of the customers looking for what they already know. The works of the stars discovered by Jean Dubuffet (Aloïse, Adolf Wölfli) or consecrated by more recent analyses (Henry Darger) have reached considerable prices.
Sometimes, this situation brings about positive effects. It is quite probable that today a secondhand dealer would look twice before throwing out the wrapped up drawings by Laure Pigeon. On the other side, it is to be noted that the works of Art Brut, whose state, volume, weight or fragility very often turn out to be incompatible with the demands of transport or exchange, are often abandoned with no remorse to bad weather and mice when they are not protected by public instutitions.
When faced with the economic effects, instead of applauding to them or fighting against them, we prefer to point out the constructive ingenuousness with which the creators of Art Brut treat the question of money.
Georgine Hu, approaching our social contracts with supreme irony , made banknotes from toilet paper. The paintings of Adolf Wölfli were, according to him, so expensive that even a fortune would not have been sufficient to acquire one of them. This did not prevent him, though, from giving away some of his works, as if he were dealing with a "medley of colors", barely good enough to entertain the children. Raphaël Lonné, on the contrary, had claimed that his drawings were made by his spiritual guides, then gradually began to sell them and would go as far as to accept their sale at a public auction. Scottie Wilson, when a gallery organized the exhibition of his work, meant no harm by selling his drawings for the hundredth of the price outside the gallery.