Alexandra Christou at Sadie Coles
Art history loves to mythologise the 'self-taught' artist. Excluded from many cliques and institutional validation of art school, when one looks back at the work of self-taught artists, their work can feel more grassroots, authentic, and motivated by something other (and more urgent) than art school and traditional museums and galleries. Similar to writers, activists, and thinkers who are in the thick of the subject matter they are studying and producing work on, there is a sense that the self-taught artwork becomes a means of conveying a pertinent message or experience, secondary to something more practical, such as ethnographic work or activism. Of course, not all self-taught artists are the same; there is a great range of work, whether classified as 'Outsider art' or not. Collectors and curators alike often pounce on self-taught artists (usually after they have died) like a rare species, desperate to tell a story that is more authentic, sometimes fetishising a cultu...
