NEW YORK, NY.- The Outsider Art Fair announces Art Brut Global, a curated virtual exhibition of artworks sourced from the Fair’s renowned galleries and dealers. Art Brut Global is being presented in three phases, providing an engaging platform on which collectors can find and purchase vetted works of excellent quality and provenance from Outsider Art Fair exhibitors, the world’s leading experts in Outsider Art.

Works by twenty canonical artists have been selected by OAF for the first phase of Art Brut Global, aligning them with their countries of origin. The exhibition is live on the Outsider Art Fair’s website, from May 8 - 29, 2020, and includes works by:

Antigua - Frank Walter • Austria - Johann Hauser • China - Guo Fengyi • Croatia - Sava Sekulic • Cuba - Felipe Jesus Consalvos • Czech Republic - Anna Zemánková • France - Augustin Lesage, Auguste Forestier • Germany - Friedrich Schröder-Sonnenstern • India - Nek Chand • Italy - Carlo Zinelli • Japan - Shinichi Sawada • Mexico - Martín Ramírez • Russia - Eugene Gabritschevsky • Serbia - Iliya Bosilj Bascevic • Switzerland - Aloïse Corbaz, Adolf Wölfli • UK - Madge Gill • USA – James Castle, Bill Traylor

Phase II, which will highlight more recent finds, is scheduled for June. Phase III will feature accomplished living artists and is currently planned for late summer/early fall.

Many of the dealers participating in Art Brut Global are pioneers in the world of self-taught art and exhibited at the first iteration of OAF which took place in 1993 at New York City’s Puck Building. These include American Primitive, Henry Boxer, Cavin-Morris, Fleisher/Ollman, Carl Hammer, Marion Harris and Ricco/Maresca. Also participating are veteran dealers like Yukiko Koide, Creative Growth, Andrew Edlin, J.P. Ritsch-Fisch, Galerie du Marche and Les Yeux Fertiles.

As a leading focal point of the Outsider Art world, OAF is uniquely positioned to organize an exhibit that assembles the best available works in our field, and rally the passionate community of aficionados, collectors, and fairgoers that have been following OAF since its inception twenty-eight years ago. Gallerist Randall Morris notes, “From the very beginning, this fair gave us the opportunity to introduce European and non-Western Art Brut artists to an American audience that previously had little access to their work.”

Fair owner Andrew Edlin added, “While major institutions—the Venice Biennial, The Met, MoMA—and top galleries like David Zwirner and Gladstone have showcased Outsider Art recently, OAF exhibitors are still the most savvy and experienced players when it comes to sourcing sought-after works by self-taught artists.”

Outsider Art dealers have carved out an historically important and influential niche in the art world landscape, thriving on the strength of the powerful art they have unearthed in places where few others were looking. With the help of astute writers and visionary curators, artists who today are the cornerstones of the Outsider Art and Art Brut canon like Aloïse Corbaz, Henry Darger, Thornton Dial, Martin Ramirez, Judith Scott, Bill Traylor and Adolf Wölfli, have transcended those categories and been recognized as some of the greatest artists of their times. Now, a new generation of dealers and scholars has risen to the fore, making discoveries and using digital technology to reveal and disseminate incredible accounts of self-taught creators and the universes they invent.