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> Outsider art is an umbrella term for any art made by self-taught individuals who are untrained and untutored in the traditional arts with typically little or no contact with the conventions of the art worlds.

Does this definition even matter when, in order to gain any significant recognition, outsider artists must get noticed and picked up by those same conventionalists of the art world?

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In this case "the conventions of the art world" refers more to technical concepts like perspective, composition, color theory, etc. In this way, outsider art is distinguished from naive art. I personally think the distinction is flimsy, but humans do like to create these kinds of taxonomy. Folk art is another similar, but somehow technically different genre of art.

It has less to do with the people in the art world: gallery owners, agents, critics, etc. Artists who meet the definition of outsider artists had their work shown in the traditional way, like Grandma Moses, Horace Pippin, etc.

It's useful for sales and promotion. Same as any other genre.

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