comment, a fear of women. Van Genk's sexual frustration was variously expressed. In 1980 he commented: “If they take my dog away, I’ll molest the little boys.” Later he complained, “You're discriminated against because you don't have a little lady friend, they think you're a fairy, there are two gays living in my street, and the thing is, they look down at you too, you can't expect anything from them either.” Prompted by such comments, as well as the inscription ‘“Artistic” homosexual in the Ark’ (originally in Dutch, ‘“Artistieke’ homophiel in de Ark’) in van Genk's Self-portrait in the Ark ("Zelfportrait in de Ark"), Van Der Endt confronted the artist: “So you're a homosexual?” The artist replied, “No, no, that was a mistake.” Whatever the mystery of Van Genk's desire really was, it was not resolved in his lifetime. Nico Van Der Endt suggests that the artist's libido was displaced onto fetish objects, and that van Genk was especially “aroused” by trains and raincoats. Van Der Endt has also made the related suggestion that van Genk's work is loaded with sexual subtexts: trains and zeppelins as phallic symbols of potency, raincoats as condom-like prophylactics, and more. This sexualized reading, though it may indeed clarify the artist's confused and frustrated feelings, is inadequate as an explanation of the artist's conscious intentions. Van Der Endt himself explicitly allows that it is “impossible to offer one comprehensive interpretation,” but claims that essentially “his work is concerned with order, power and impotence.” Reputation as outsider Van Genk occupies a paradoxical position as one of the official masters of Outsider Art. Raw Vision, the leading magazine devoted to the subject, has twice included van Genk on its list of masters, and the artist has been the subject of considerable attention from European museums devoted to Outsider Art/Art Brut. In 2014 was the subject of an exhibition at the American Folk Art Museum, the leading American museum in this field. Van Genk the man was certainly an outsider, with his mental difficulties resulting in his social marginalization. As a boy he repeatedly failed in schools, as a young man he was forced into compulsory labor for the disabled, and as an old man he was at least twice involuntarily committed to psychiatric institutions. He complained of his friendlessness. In the straightforward, common sense of the word, there can be no denying that, as a person, van