Art brut, dans l’intimité d’une collection – La donation Decharme au Centre Pompidou
Published on the occasion of the exhibition Art Brut: Inside a Collection. The Decharme Donation at the Centre Pompidou. June 11 – September 21, 2025, Grand Palais.
A collective work, edited by Bruno Decharme and Barbara Safarova
Publisher: GrandPalais RMN Éditions / Centre Pompidou.
Presented as a journey through time and space, a kaleidoscope of questions, this book recounts an aspect of the history of Art Brut through the lens of a collector’s perspective. The themes explored are universal: through them, Art Brut creators—singular artists—express the same concerns as we do. It is their personal histories that have excluded them from the social sphere and led them to interpret the world in ways profoundly different from our own. From these ruptures and painful experiences, they have drawn extraordinary, unprecedented, and fascinating creative richness.
By offering a selection of more than four hundred works, spanning from the 17th century to the present day, drawn from the thousands included in the donation, and by bringing together authors with a variety of viewpoints, this volume—published alongside the exhibition—proposes an open reflection on this artistic territory and demonstrates how Art Brut challenges cultural conventions through unconventional, unusual, and unparalleled inventions.
CONTENTS
Art Brut? Never heard of it! — Bernard Blistène
Each chapter is introduced by a text by Bruno Decharme
I – Repairing the World
Art Brut: from exclusion to restoration — François Piron
Adornment and dissident performances — Lucienne Peiry
The paths of silence: formal analysis in the interpretation of asylum art — Diane Toubert
II – “To me the tongues of fire that blaze”
Successful failures — Michel Thévoz
In search of a key – the cipher of destiny — Barbara Safarova
III – Order, for God’s sake!
Order… desperately? — Béatrice Steiner
IV – Art Brut Around the World
Wild Switzerland, a land of refuge for works of otherness — Sarah Lombardi
Japan
Art Brut: Japan, resistant nonetheless — Rena Kano
Brazil
Art and madness in Brazil: the legacy of pioneers Osório Cesar and Nise da Silveira — Eurípedes Gomez da Cruz Junior and Christina Gabaglia Penna
Cuba
Art Brut in Cuba: creative freedom in the face of totalitarian dogma — Derbis Campos Hernández
United States
Dead ends and fortunes of Art Brut in the United States — Valérie Rousseau
V – Monsters, Chimeras and Ghosts
Figures of the strange and the bestiary of Art Brut — Céline Gazzoletti
VI – Break / Collage
From tinkering to artwork — Cristina Agostinelli
VII – Workshops | Brut
Haus der Künstler. Creative Growth Art Center. “S” Grand Atelier
Workshops and Art Brut today — Caterina Flor Gümpel
VIII – Orphan Works
The anonymous figures of Art Brut: between selflessness and assertion — Gustavo Giacosa
Art policy under National Socialism and medical crimes — Thomas Röske
IX – Dancing with Spirits
The dead are not dead: the legacy of American spiritualism — Robert Cozzolino
“Haunted Images”: a brief history of French, Swiss and British spirit art around 1900 — Philippe Baudouin
Conjure and Hoodoo: the artistic and spiritual heritage of African Americans — Randall Morris
X – Diaries, Journals of the World
“I is a host” — Clémentine Mercier
What does Art Brut tell us about History? — Manuel Anceau
XI – Celestial Epics
Beyond the clouds: the worlds of Zdeněk Košek, Achilles G. Rizzoli and Adolf Wölfli — Daniel Baumann
APPENDICES
abcd
Selection of Art Brut exhibitions
List of works
Bibliography
Index of names
ADDITIONAL MATERIAL
Biography
Chronology
Hardcover
24 × 31 cm
350 pages
640 illustrations
French