Create and Be Recognized

Book excerpt: Create and Be Recognized is the first survey of a compelling, always surprising art form -- outsider photography. Presented here is the work of seventeen largely self-taught artists who have used photography or photographic elements in their creations, including such luminaries as Adolf Wolfli, Howard Finster, and Henry Darger, as well as discoveries from little known, equally dramatic artists. As with most outsider art, the work here is fuelled by singular passions, marginalized mindsets, and extreme circumstances, falling outside mainstream picture-making. Employing collage (affixing photos or reproductions to a background), photocollage (photographs cut and pasted together to form a new whole), and tableaux (works based on manipulation and staging), the artists here present work that is, by turns, lyrical and frightening, and always fascinating. Published to coincide with a major touring exhibition of the same name originating at San Francisco's Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Create and Be Recognized documents an emerging and important facet of contemporary photography.