Henry Darger and Morton Bartlett: Outsider Art's Absence of Work

An article in artpress2 n°30 (August-September-October 2013) examines the marginalization of self-taught artists Henry Darger (1892-1973) and Morton Bartlett (1909-1992) within official American art history. Despite their lifetimes spanning the 20th century, they are omitted from major surveys like Irving Sandler's "The Triumph of American Art" and "Art since 1900" by Hal Foster, Rosalind Krauss, Yve-Alain Bois, and Benjamin Buchloh. Their work has been confined to outsider art categories, but the 21st century brought re-evaluation: Darger's work was exhibited at MoMA PS1 in 2001 alongside Goya and the Chapman brothers, while Bartlett's was shown at Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin in 2012 as part of "Secret Universe." The article argues for analyzing their work outside categorical boundaries, referencing Michel Foucault's concept of madness as an "absence of work." Darger's epic "The Story of the Vivian Girls" spans over 30,000 pages with collages, drawings, and paintings depicting the Vivian sisters persecuted by the Glandelinians, incorporating influences from the Civil War, Charles Dickens, Grimm's fairy tales, and the Divine Comedy. Bartlett created hyperrealistic half-size dolls (twelve girls aged 8-16, three boys aged 8) from age 27 until 1963, photographing them in over 200 black-and-white images that prefigure Laurie Simmons and Cindy Sherman. Both artists share a pedophilic inclination, and their works resist easy categorization within art history.