Writing and isolation,
Art Brut and storyteller
An exhibition about writing, with personal outlook(s)
Thirteen artists and Art Brut authors, one room, one curator : multiple impressions. In this exhibition, curated by Lucienne Perry, the director and curator of the Musée d'Art Brut, in Lausanne from 2001 to 2011. The show is much more than just a scientific thinking, it's a process, between what we should look, what we see, what we know and what we learned with the text, within the show.
But, beforehand, the show start with this title : Écrits d’Art Brut – Wild Expression & Thought.
Brut ?
Of course, this definition clearly depend from artist to artist, or even from different collectors or collections. Therefore, I will give you the definition of Jean Dubuffet (1901 - 1985) in the book of the Galerie René Drouin :
"By this [Art Brut] we mean pieces of work executed by people untouched by artistic culture, in which therefore mimicry, contrary to what happens in intellectuals, plays little or no part, so that their authors draw everything (subjects, choice of materials employed, means of transposition, rhythms, ways of writing, etc.) from their own depths and not from clichés of classical art or art that is fashionable. Here we are witnessing an artistic operation that is completely pure, raw, reinvented in all its phases by its author, based solely on his own impulses. Art, therefore, in which is manifested the sole function of invention, and not those, constantly seen in cultural art, of the chameleon and the monkey."
By the way, these are the artists presented in the show (coming from different national, regional or rival collections, from all round the world) : Arthur Bispo do Rosário, Giovanni Bosco, Marie Lieb, Heinrich Anton Müller, Fernando Nannetti, Laure Pigeon, Giovanni Battista Podestà, Armand Schulthess, Constance Schwartzlin-Berberat, Charles Steffen, Pascal Vonlanthen, Adolf Wölfli und Carlo Zinelli.
All of them had a different style, subject but also creative process. From (love) letters, poems, prayers, (erotic) messages, diary and utopian story's and narratives. Therefore, they will share the focus of the show : writing. But not writing as a public activity, but as a private, personal and open-minded activity. Highly decorated or more-or-less minimalist, with or without colors, historical or not, biographical or utopian.
FOCUS
Born during the First World War, on July 2, 1916, the Italian artist stayed in Verona (his hometown) before living it in 1934. But, as the Second World War started, he volunteered for the Spanish Civil War in 1939.
Those, Carlo's works will be composed of paintings, sculptures and works on paper and letters. All of it made every day, during 8 years, with tempera paints and colored pencils. Nonetheless, he got into creating as an everyday process and a clinical and calming process, which will help him get better.
His works will be exhibited in the 1960s, before being studied by art historians and Jean Dubuffet, for his Compagnie de l'Art Brut. But, 10 years later, his hospital will move, is story and his practice too. He will make fewer works and with less material, therefore he will use the two sides of the piece of paper.
As he will suffer from psychoses and important hallucinations, he will begin to draw a series of work between 1904 and 1906. But, it's much more than a relaxing process, it's a creative and inspiring one for the doctor who follow him.
Therefore, Walter Morhenthaler, one of his doctors had a particular interested into Wölfli's work. As much as he will write about it in his upcoming book Ein Geisteskranker als Künstler (A Psychiatric Parient as Artist), publish in 1921. The book detail the works of the patient while liking it to his health and his link to art. This will give him enough confident to included it in the Compagnie de l'Art Brut from Jean Dubuffet.
But, what's his method ? Morgenthaler will observe it and wrote it in his book :
"Every Monday morning Wölfli is given a new pencil and two large sheets of unprinted newsprint. The pencil is used up in two days; then he has to make do with the stubs he has saved or with whatever he can beg off someone else. He often writes with pieces only five to seven millimetres long and even with the broken-off points of lead, which he handles deftly, holding them between his fingernails. He carefully collects packing paper and any other paper he can get from the guards and patients in his area; otherwise he would run out of paper before the next Sunday night. At Christmas the house gives him a box of coloured pencils, which lasts him two or three weeks at the most."
Therefore, the image and method of the artist is complex, even more when you can to compare it to his oeuvre, consisting of 25,000 pages and 1,600 illustrations.
Lastly, the Swiss artist Heinrich Anton Müller was an "outsider" with his Art Brut oeuvre. After being married to his Swiss wife and move to the canton of Vaud to become a Winegrower, he will be clearly influenced by the techniques and studies of Leonardo da Vinci, and therefore started to create new machines and materials.
He will, at one point, register his patent of this new machine at the Federal Copyright Office, but the design will be stolen... Therefore, he will turn itself into art making.
Informations about the exhibition
Place: Museum Tinguely
Date: 20.10.2021 – 23.1.2022
Curators: Lucienne Peiry
Ticket: Available on the website of the Museum Tinguely OR at the front desk of the museum
Informations about the Museum Tinguely
Museum Tinguely
Paul Sacher-Anlage 2 - P.O Box 3255
CH-4002 Basel
Phone: +41 61 681 93 20
Mail: basel.infostinguely@roche.com