Inside – it’s warm, you belong there, you know about things that others have no idea about. And outside? You stand in front of closed doors, knock in vain, are not part of the inner circle, don’t understand the inside jokes. Clear-cut? No, it’s not quite that simple. Because outside – aren’t there also discoveries, the vastness, the unknown, the freedom? And inside it can quickly become boring and stuffy…

We also sometimes struggle with the term Outsider Art. In 1972, Roger Cardinal introduced the term, which can refer to many different movements and areas within marginalized art – and not just Art Brut, which strictly speaking refers exclusively to Jean Dubuffet’s personal “Cabinet des curiosités”. Dilemma solved? Yes and no. Although the term Outsider Art is certainly more appropriate than Art Brut with regard to the exhibition practice of the Musée Visionnaire, we are nevertheless critical of it. Because an “outside” implies an “inside”. And the binary in turn opens up a new pigeonhole – which should actually remain closed or not even exist in the first place.

If we had to put a stamp on the Musée Visionnaire, we would prefer to use this one: We show art by people for whom conventions are not strings that they hang on to, but rather cut through them and link them in new ways. We show artists who step (or jump?) outside the box and do not allow themselves to be conditioned by the established art world.