Architecture

Art Brut | The Collection

Architecture, the second Art Brut Biennale, presents a selection of works from the Art Brut Collection (Lausanne), linked together by a common theme. The exhibition and the catalogue show the public new works by perhaps lesser-known authors, while taking a new slant on some historical pieces. Running the gamut from reality to utopia, Art Brut authors design architectures in resonance with their everyday lives or their memories, reorganising the space around them according to their own rules and needs. Their imagination and inventiveness carries them to distant, unexplored lands. Yet the vision of architecture that these Art Brut authors offer us here opens up a new dimension, escaping all practical considerations. Over 250 works by 52 creators of all origins — European, North American, or Asian — have been selected for the exhibition. This book presents colour illustrations, a short biography, and a bibliography for each artist. The diversity at the heart of this concept can be seen in the many different forms and techniques used, such as painting, drawing, sculpture, and embroidery. Among the artists: Aloïse, Juliette Élisa Bataille, Filippo Bentivegna, Georges Berthomier, Gregory Lee Blackstock, Benjamin Bonjour, Édouard Boschey, Luigi Brunetti, André Car, Diego, Paul Duhem, Paul End, Samuel Failloubaz, Florent, Jacqueline Fromenteau, Willem Van Genk, Jules Godi, Heer, Magali Herrera, Stefan Holzmüller, Testuaki Hotta, Norimitsu Kokubo, F. Kouw, Helmut Nimczewski, Nikifor, Prinz Otto, Émile Ratier, Royal Roberston, Hans Saletmeier, Victorien Sardou, Yuri Titov, Johann Trösch, Yuji Tsuji, Berthe Urasco, Pepe de Valence, Pascal Verbena, Scottie Wilson, Adolf Wölfli.

Building on the legacy of some five thousand pieces collected by Jean Dubuffet between 1945 and 1971, the Art Brut Collection now owns over sixty thousand works, the fruit of nearly forty years of research. Architecture is the second volume in the series Art Brut – The Collection, published by 5 Continents and the Swiss institution, after Vehicles (2014).

Sarah Lombardi is an art historian and has been director of the Art Brut Collection since 2012.
Pascale Marini-Jeanneret is an art historian with a degree in museology and library science. In Paris she worked with the contemporary artist Thomas Hirschhorn for several years and wrote for the magazine Art Press. Since 2002, she has been a curator at the Art Brut Collection in Lausanne, where she manages the collection and curates exhibitions. She has written extensively about contemporary artists and Art Brut authors.
Laurent Danchin is a writer, lecturer, and art critic, a specialist in Art Brut, outsider art, and singular art. Graduating from the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris with an agrégation in modern literature, he taught in high schools in Nanterre and Boulogne-Billancourt, near the capital, from 1972 to 2006. He is the French correspondent for the magazine Raw Vision and curated a series of exhibitions at Halle Saint Pierre, in Paris, from 1995.