Art Brut Ressourcé La « S » Grand Atelier

Halle Saint Pierre

In September 2026, La Halle Saint-Pierre (Paris) invites the outsider and contemporary art centre La « S » Grand Atelier (Vielsalm, B) to interact with the concept of Art Brut ressourcé (Michel Thévoz, éd. Knock Outsider, Théories du K.O. 2025). It must be acknowledged, as Michel Thévoz points out, that "the heroic era of Art Brut and its chosen territories—psychiatric, carceral and spiritist—are today over". Yet, the author continues, art brut has lost neither its vitality nor its virulence. In particular, participatory workshops, of which La « S » Grand Atelier is a spearhead, represent one of the new sources of art brut in the 21st century. La Halle Saint-Pierre, an essential venue for exhibition, encounter and reflection, actively contributes to bringing Art Brut into being and helping it evolve. It thus offers La « S » Grand Atelier the opportunity not to remain on the margin but to make the margin a centre. Art Brut ressourcé reveals the creative and innovative potential, as well as the collective artistic power, of a community of creators, most of whom live with a mental disability. La « S » Grand Atelier holds that every artist, whether considered atypical or not, can make their contribution to culture and society. By placing the emphasis on artistic experimentation, collaboration, the collective, dialogue, reflection and artistic rigour, La « S » Grand Atelier creates an environment in which creation can flourish freely, in which the categorisations (disability v/s non-disability) no longer operate, and in which the boundaries between the worlds of art are deconstructed. On the occasion of this Art Brut ressourcé exhibition, La Halle Saint-Pierre aims to somewhat deterritorialise the cartography of Art Brut by inscribing within it the diversity of artistic forms and collaborations produced by this extraordinary Belgian communal project. La Halle Saint-Pierre and La « S » Grand Atelier choose to embrace the legacy of art brut in order to uphold its humanist values, freeing themselves from the fantasies of a primitivism that the art market still all too often exploits.

Source: Paris Open Data ↗