Art Brut does not recognise the concept of authorship. The anonymous works in this exhibition, taken from the Art Brut Collection or loaned by partner institutions abroad, were often considered as symptoms of deviance at the time they were created. They bear witness to humanity denied, buried within the massive prison-asylums of the late 19th and early 20th century.

Curators:
Gustavo Giacosa, stage director and actor,
and Pascale Jeanneret, curator, Collection de l’Art Brut

The creators of Art Brut conceive their works in the margins of what is gene­rally accepted as art, and so are indifferent to any rules or standards relating to artistic creation. Michel Thévoz’ analysis of the concept of the frame in Art Brut is therefore fascinating, precisely because the works selected for the exhibition tend to break out of their frames, both literally and figuratively.

Michel Thévoz’s book Pathologie du cadre, preface by Sarah Lombardi, Paris, Les Éditions de Minuit, 2020, 160 pages, 67 color plates, will be published this autumn.

The Collection de l’Art Brut will be closed until September 17th (2019) for construction work entailing, above all, the installation of an elevator. Given this time frame, we take pleasure in inviting you to a show extending from June 28th to September 22nd in the gardens of the Château de Beaulieu in Lausanne and featuring large-scale photographs of Outsider Art “environments” from around the world. These represent architectural feats or installations set up, for the most part, on private plots or gardens belonging to self-taught builders. Some of the latter have, however, taken over such sites covertly: to such creators, the very act of creating is part and parcel of their entire life.

The photographs to be presented hail from various sources. Some, now belonging to our museum archives, come from a group of slides donated to the museum by the photographers Cynthia Carlson, Francis David and Beryl Sokoloff. Others (Scott Miller, Willem Volkersz, Robert Foster) hail from the SPACES (Saving and Preserving Art and Cultural Environments) association — a non-profit organization born in Los Angeles in 1978, and spearheaded, at the time, by the renowned and militant community founder Seymour Rosen, who passed away in 2006. SPACES was the first institution devoted to documenting and conserving Outsider Art environments, initially in the United States and, later, worldwide. The selection on display will also include several photos by resp. Hervé Couton, Mario Del Curto and Philippe Lespinasse. We are most grateful to them for their support of this project, as we are to Jo Farb Hernández (currently heading SPACES) and to the Vevey Images festival.

The imaginary world of Michael Golz, entitled “ Athosland ”, is a lifetime’s work. Its German creator, born in 1957, has been working on it since childhood. This unique and monumental creation is made up of several elements : a geographical map, drawings depicting views of places and folders containing drawings and texts relating to Michael Golz’s travels throughout this land.