Where Graffiti Meets Outsider Art
Both are self-taught, unofficial and made outside the gallery system. What graffiti and outsider art really have in common, and where they part company.
By The Outsider Artist editors, Editorial team, Website Studio
Updated
· Last reviewed · 2 min read
In short
- Graffiti and outsider art are both mostly self-taught and made outside official art institutions.
- The key difference is audience: graffiti is made to be seen, while classic outsider art was often made privately, with no audience in mind.
- Graffiti follows the shared rules and styles of a culture; outsider art usually follows one person's private vision.
- Both have moved from the margins into museums, auction houses and festivals, raising similar questions about authenticity and money.
- Some makers sit between the two, such as builders of public visionary environments like the Brighton Flint Grotto.
What do graffiti and outsider art have in common?
- Self-taught makers. Most graffiti writers and outsider artists learned outside art schools.
- Unofficial spaces. Both began outside galleries: on walls and trains, or in hospital wards, rented rooms and back gardens.
- Found materials. Spray cans and walls on one side, scraps of paper, cardboard and cement on the other.
- Obsessive practice. Writers fill black books and cities with their names; outsiders fill thousands of pages.
- Suspicion from authority. Graffiti was treated as vandalism and outsider art as a symptom long before either was treated as art.
How are they different?
| Graffiti | Classic outsider art | |
|---|---|---|
| Audience | Made to be seen, mainly by other writers | Often made privately, with no audience in mind |
| Rules | Shared culture with styles, etiquette and hierarchies | A private vision, often an invented system |
| Community | Crews, scenes and rivalries | Often isolated makers |
| Name | Fame is the point: getting your name up | Some refused credit, like Madge Gill signing as Myrninerest |
| Legal status | Usually illegal without permission | Usually legal, made on the maker's own materials or property |
Jean Dubuffet's strict definition of art brut excluded anyone following a shared tradition or seeking an audience, which would rule out most graffiti. Graffiti writers, for their part, often reject both "outsider" and "street art" as labels imposed from outside their culture.
Where do the two meet?
- Public visionary environments
- Builders such as Rory McCormack, whose flint figures stand on Brighton beach, or Simon Rodia, whose Watts Towers rise above a Los Angeles street, made unofficial art in public view without permission, much like street artists. See visionary environments.
- Writing and words
- Many outsider artists, such as Adolf Wölfli, fused text and image, and much graffiti is, at heart, an art of letters.
- Art from the margins
- Some street artists, like Stik, began painting while homeless and have spoken of art as a route out of hard times, a story familiar from outsider art.
- The market
- Both fields saw prices soar once galleries and auction houses took notice. Banksy's 2009 Bristol Museum show and Henry Darger's rise to fame both raised questions about who benefits.
Is graffiti a kind of outsider art?
Mostly no, in the strict sense, because graffiti is a shared culture with its own rules, schools of style and audience. But in the broad modern sense of art made by self-taught people outside the art world, there is real overlap, and many people who love one also love the other. That is why this site covers both.
Where to go next
Start with what is outsider art? or the history of graffiti in the UK.
Sources and further reading
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