HUMBLE transport official Nek Chand did not arouse much public attention until his secret garden, where hundreds of sculpture figures built of industrial waste and discarded items were erected in a small patch of cleared jungle, was discovered by authorities in the north Indian city of Chandigarh.

Chand started using recycled materials he found at hand to make sculptures of figures about 50 years ago, but he only created works at night and in total secrecy for fear of being discovered.

"This October, we will have an Indian exhibition of Nek Chand's extraordinary works. At the Collection de l'Art Brut (CAB), the exhibition will try to recreate an idea of what the whole garden looks like," said Georges-Marie Schmutz, the associate curator for Asian Outsider Art at CAB in Lausanne. "It will be an occasion to show European visitors that Outsider Art exists everywhere in the world."

Creative outsiders

Historically, Outsider Art or Art Brut is regarded as a Western discovery, a Western enterprise and a Western concern, as Schmutz implies.

Seeking a breakthrough in his process of artistic creation, Jean Dubuffet, a French artist (1901-85) travelled to Lausanne for a cultural exchange. He visited several mental hospitals and was deeply touched by the art created by patients, which later greatly inspired his own artistic creation.

After returning to France, Dubuffet advanced his concept of Art Brut and from then on he devoted his life to exploring this new artistic possibility.

"Brut, in French, means rough, not refined," said Lorenz Helbling, Swiss Artist and director of the ShanghART Gallery. Long ago, as an art student, Helbling visited the CAB. He recalled how amazing it was "to view those fascinating works. They belong to a different part of art. When we take a look at them, we have a chance to see a very personal world created by 'Outsider' artists."

Michel Thevoz, the former curator of the CAB, has written: "Art Brut", or "Outsider Art", consists of works produced by people who for various reasons have not been culturally indoctrinated or socially conditioned. They are all dwellers on the fringes of society. Working outside the fine art "system", these people have produced, from the depths of their own personalities and for themselves and no one else, works of outstanding originality in concept, subject and technique.

"Outsider Art is created in secrecy, in silence, in solitude," said Lucienne Peiry, curator of the CAB since 1995. Unlike academic artists, Outsider Art creators do not express the need to show their works and are not asking for any artistic or social approval. Therefore, "looking for Outsider Art works means finding something that is hidden. The difficulty as far as searching for Outsider Art is concerned is linked to the very nature of this particular art," Peiry said.

Asian attention

The exhibition of Nek Chand is CAB's latest effort to draw attention to Outsider Art in Asia, where this new art area has already begun to arouse attention among the public, especially in Japan and China's Taiwan.

Taiwanese author Hong Mizhen has already published two books on the topic of Outsider Art, with one bearing the title "The Story of Art Brut".

As far as Japan is concerned, one of Japan's most notable and active art curators, Yukiko Koide, told Schmutz in a recent e-mail that the concept of Art Brut was not yet very familiar. "Although specialists recognize the term, they do not have many opportunities to see the works. There is no such museum as the CAB and very few galleries exhibit Art Brut."

However, Koide said that artist like Henry Darger were popular and Japanese people loved him. "The world of Darger - visual drama full of violence, sexual exposure and innocence rendered in beautiful colours - strikes us deeply," she wrote.

Henry Darger (1872-1973), a dishwasher in a hospital in Chicago, created 300 paintings and a 15,000 page epic "The Realms of the Unreal", which were not discovered and published until after his death, by his landlords. In his whole life, this solitary man never regarded himself as an artist and never cared about seeing his paintings displayed.

In an exhibition dedicated to writings by Outsider Artists in 2004, Schmutz and Peiry noticed that there was only one piece of work by an Asian - Kunizo Matsumoto.

Seeing the scarcity of Asian Outsider Art works being presented, they decided to search for Outsider Art in China, "because China, in its present transformation, is changing the face of Asia," Schmutz said.

"We want to present works by Outsider Art creators in order to raise them to the level of real and full works of art. We want to present them to the public, to show them in the best of light, to preserve them in the best possible condition. For us, a work of Outsider Art is as precious as a work by Leonardo da Vinci," Peiry said.

More or less a China expert, Schmutz, who came to China in 1979 and studied as an overseas student at Fudan University in 1982, is expecting to visit Shanghai this July. "As soon as we are sure there are works available in China it will be possible to show them in an exhibition," he said.

"Yes, I know they are looking for Outsider Art works," said Yao Xinwei, vice-director of the Shanghai Centre of Disease Control and Prevention for Mental Health. A psychiatrist was entrusted by Schmutz to ask Yao whether it was possible to find Outsider Art in China.

"Patients with mental illness can also be talented people, some of whom even have extraordinary intelligence," Yao said. While working as a clinician, he remembered that relatives and friends of patients often provided them with many paintings or writings produced by patients during their periods of illness.

"I am sure that there must be Outsider Art works in Chinese mainland. But there is much work to be done and I would like to know more about the kind of art works the CAB hopes to collect," Yao said.

Artists in question

Being free of artistic conventions and in its own ways revolutionary, Peiry believed that Outsider Art had the power to crush any established values about art creation. The very existence of Outsider Art raises many vital questions about art: What is an artist? What does the artistic "status" mean? What can school training bring as far as art is concerned - can we learn art? What are the motivations of an artist?

"We, as individuals, when we want to discuss art or understand art, have also our own sensations related to art, our own feeling that we can or cannot make art," Schmutz said. "But usually, because we are impressed by the history of art and by the domination of established art, we are made very shy and do not dare to think of ourselves as potential art producers. Outsider Art brings us stories of art being produced by all kinds of people in all kinds of situations and thus re-opens our imagination about art."

A fact that the CAB cannot resist is that some Outsider Art works have entered the market. So Peiry and her colleagues have taken on the crucial job of searching for hidden Outsider Art creators, to acquire the works before they are on the market, to bring them to light, to exhibit them for the public, to publish articles and books and to try to explain what has been usually ignored or suppressed for decades. "It is important that we preserve them from destruction and disappearance today," she said.

Another reason that Outsider Art was important to the public, Schmutz said, "is probably because it is important to learn that our society is larger, richer, more complex than we usually imagine. We should learn to pay attention to people who do not fit into our pre-defined social and artistic categories. Through their unconventional art, they teach us to be critical, conscious and aware of reality."