Loan of the works from the IAC Collection, Villeurbanne/Rhône-Alpes:
Armand Avril, Sans titre, 1968
Armand Avril, Course de taureaux à Décines, 1983
Armand Avril, Sans titre, 1968
Armand Avril, Course de taureaux à Décines, 1983
Singuliers théâtres (Singular theaters), 21/10/2023 to 11/02/2024, Musée Paul Dini, Villefranche-sur-Saône, France
The Paul-Dini municipal museum in Villefranche-sur-Saône has in its collections artists defined as singular artists. The Singuliers théâtres exhibition is an opportunity to question this notion of singularity, too often associated with art brut. Singular art, however, is neither a movement, nor an artistic current, nor even a style qualifying a new aesthetic category. This label has been assigned to very different artists, free and unusual in the way they create. Some are self-taught, others use unusual materials, but above all, they all develop a personal, atypical and unclassifiable body of work.
The term “art brut” was defined by Jean Dubuffet in 1949. The notion of “art singulier” was born in 1978, with the exhibition Les Singuliers de l'art, presented at the Musée d'Art moderne de la Ville de Paris. Dubuffet encouraged art lovers interested in artists working on the bangs of official art to invent new terms for their collections, to avoid confusion with his own collection of art brut. Some artists find themselves presented in several collections with different names: “art singulier, art outsider, art hors-les-normes, art en marge, art cru, art naïf”, contributing to the confusion between these terms. The exhibition aims to shake up these labels by focusing on the work of twelve artists associated with the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region: from early 20th-century sculptors or builders, referred to as “habitants paysagistes” - the Facteur Cheval, Antoine Rabany, author of the famous “Barbus Müller”, Joseph Barbiero; Anselme Boix-Vives and Gaston Chaissac; Armand Avril, Philippe Dereux and Henri Ughetto, major artists in the museum's collection; to contemporary artists such as Jean Rosset, Loren, Marie Morel and Isabelle Jarousse.
The Paul-Dini municipal museum in Villefranche-sur-Saône has in its collections artists defined as singular artists. The Singuliers théâtres exhibition is an opportunity to question this notion of singularity, too often associated with art brut. Singular art, however, is neither a movement, nor an artistic current, nor even a style qualifying a new aesthetic category. This label has been assigned to very different artists, free and unusual in the way they create. Some are self-taught, others use unusual materials, but above all, they all develop a personal, atypical and unclassifiable body of work.
The term “art brut” was defined by Jean Dubuffet in 1949. The notion of “art singulier” was born in 1978, with the exhibition Les Singuliers de l'art, presented at the Musée d'Art moderne de la Ville de Paris. Dubuffet encouraged art lovers interested in artists working on the bangs of official art to invent new terms for their collections, to avoid confusion with his own collection of art brut. Some artists find themselves presented in several collections with different names: “art singulier, art outsider, art hors-les-normes, art en marge, art cru, art naïf”, contributing to the confusion between these terms. The exhibition aims to shake up these labels by focusing on the work of twelve artists associated with the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region: from early 20th-century sculptors or builders, referred to as “habitants paysagistes” - the Facteur Cheval, Antoine Rabany, author of the famous “Barbus Müller”, Joseph Barbiero; Anselme Boix-Vives and Gaston Chaissac; Armand Avril, Philippe Dereux and Henri Ughetto, major artists in the museum's collection; to contemporary artists such as Jean Rosset, Loren, Marie Morel and Isabelle Jarousse.
