An Artist of Our Social Age

As an outsider to the art world myself, like most of us, some of the article's framing seemed strange to me--like the goal was to craft a narrative for potentially lucrative art deals. It's a very 'safe' story to tell now that the artist is dead.

- How is he an outsider artist if he has a Masters of Fine Arts in photography? He may be self-taught at painting but at the end of the day every artist is self-taught. The author seems to acknowledge some of the bias of the term, but either 99.9% of artists in history are outsider artists (e.g. don't make a living from participation in an 'art world') or the here it means 'societal outsider'.

- Why instantly dismiss the comparison to NFTs? Spending millions for a painting, likely done in one session, by an artist almost solely known online, has little to do with the aesthetic value of the painting. Most of what you're buying is a story, the story in the article.

Also, unrelated, I had a strong hunch from the quote at the beginning of the article that he was autistic. I had a similar perspective thing in middle school, imagining how effects in nature would be simulated in Source engine games lol.

It's also an autistic trait to care less about external feedback than most people. I related to the artist in the article and can't help but wonder what would happen if I properly sought fame or notoriety as an artist. It's both appealing and against my nature.