Without Borders: Outsider Art in an Antipodean Context

Dates:
30 August – 21 September 2008

Location:
Campbelltown Arts Centre, NSW

Artists:
Alvaro Alvarez, Norman Ballou, Slim Barrie, Morton Bartlett, Laron Bickerstaff, Leigh Blenkinsop, Sue Chan, Thanh Diep, John Ellenden and Matthew Hopkins, Howard Finster, Rolfe Hattaway, Carol Hiltunen, John Hiltunen, Warren Jee, Colin Korovin, Jonathan Lunt, John Patrick Mckenzie, Cameron Noble, Jodie Noble, Bill Payne, Lisa Reid, Jose Dos Santos, Gordon Shepard, Alex Schwitalia, Judith Scott, Amy Szostak, Reece Tong, William Tyler, Alfred Wallis, Miles Howard Wilks

Guest Curators:
Glenn Barkley, Chief Executive Officer, Ergas Collection, and Peter Fay, independent curator

Touring:
Monash University Gallery
16 April – 21 June 2008

Developed in partnership with Campbelltown Arts Centre, Without Borders considered the place of ‘outsider art’ and situated the work of Australian and New Zealand artists in an international, trans-historical context.

Without Borders included key works by seminal practitioners such as Alfred Wallis, Howard Finster and Morton Bartlett, who were presented alongside lesser known international, Australian and New Zealand artists, including Slim Barrie, Rolfe Hattaway and the artists associated with Arts Project in Melbourne, among others.

Without Borders focused on the artists’ ability to create rich idiosyncratic visual worlds based on popular culture, mythology and lived experience; a primacy and urgent vitality in the construction and rendering of their work; an emphasis on materiality and process; and the ability to transform humble materials and objects through artistic insight and creativity. The exhibition included works in diverse media, spanning painting, sculpture, photography, books, film and animation.

Published in conjunction with the exhibition was an extensive catalogue with commissioned essays considering wider issues around outsider art, including the influence of outsider art on mainstream cultural production, and the history of outsider art in Australia and New Zealand.

Public Program:
Beyond the Margins: Contexts and Complexities around the Collection and Display of Outsider Art, Thursday 22 May 2008

^{Image: Judith Scott, Untitled (JS-9) 2005, fibre and found objects, Courtesy Creative Growth Art Centre, Oakland, Cal., USA}