Michel Foucault used the term »heterotopia« to refer to parallel social worlds that display a different fabric of relationships and a different order – enclaves in the real world, such as prisons and sanatoriums. This book features works that can be considered »Outsider Art« – working outside the mainstream, their authors are people exposed to extreme mental strains and pushed to the fringes of society.
The German Architecture Museum has a small collection of outsider works. They are supplemented in this volume by examples of artists from the early 20th century to the present (including from the Prinzhorn Collection) who, like the outsider artists, created imaginary habitations and world systems. Prominently represented are the works of the Dutch artist Willem van Genk (1927– 2005). Describing these as urban and machine visions does not really do them justice. Joining them is the enchanting empire Monera, on which the artist Gerard van Lankveld, likewise from the Netherlands, is still working today.

Editor: Peter Cachola Schmal, Yorck Förster
Authors: Christiane Cuticchio, Frederik De Preester, Patrick Allegaert, Peter Cachola Schmal, Yorck Förster

Hardcover
24 x 30 cm
128 pages
95 color ills.
German/English
available
ISBN 978-3-939583-99-8
29,50 Euro
2008