What some contemptuously call “psychopathological art” is in fact nothing more than the materialization of those feelings and sensations present in each of us, unconditioned by cultural, social, or religious influences.
In an art brut museum, there is a strange and unsettling familiarity with the exhibited works. These are pieces created without a shred of technical knowledge and often using only makeshift materials. The creators are mostly misfits, outcasts, and psychopaths, but there are also inmates, generally antisocial individuals, and vagrants. All these characters share a “lucid madness,” an inner restlessness more evident or more cultivated than in others.
Art brut should not be confused with naive art. The latter targets a market, has techniques and standards to follow, whereas art brut exists for itself, it is a kind of personal diary, an entirely private world. Approaching the works must be done with humility and without judgment.
The great creativity and vigorous imagination of these artists provoke a violent break from everyday reality, translating into practical terms the “good” side of the word “madness.” A term with a double meaning: constructive and creative, or potentially dangerous for society, not only physically but especially morally. According to Western culture, the only acceptable and justified madness is that found in the art world. But here we are beyond madness. Art brut breaks free from any boundaries and is naturally welcomed eagerly by psychotherapists and psychiatrists, who see in it great research potential.
Art for business or art for art’s sake?
The creator of the Museum of Art Brut was the Frenchman Jean Dubuffet. One day he asked himself: what should I expect from art? Perhaps only aesthetic beauty? Or objects meant for decoration? But he soon convinced himself that his would be “a much longer and more adventurous journey,” searching for a profound break with the norms that established artistic canons and bound one to officially recognized procedures only. The fruits of that lifelong research were gathered in a very special museum, the Collection of Art Brut in Lausanne, Switzerland.
The Museum of Art Brut is unique in its kind, housing works by artists from all over the world, united by the “non-norms” typical of this art form. It was in Switzerland that Dubuffet began, in 1945, the research and collection of “extra-cultural art productions.” Over the years he managed to gather over 1200 works created by artists of different nationalities, and in 1967 exhibited part of them at the Museum of Decorative Arts in Paris. In 1976, the collection was transferred from France to Switzerland and the Collection of Art Brut in Lausanne was inaugurated.
Two representatives from Italy
Among the collection’s works are sculptures by Filippo Bentivegna, born in 1885 in Sciacca, Sicily. A highly original character, a dowser, he emigrated to the United States for 20 years and loved wood, especially knotted wood from which he carved sculptures of ambiguous figures and unexpected metamorphoses. Then there are works by Carlo, born in 1916, originally from S. Giovanni Lupatolo, a small village in the province of Verona. Since 1957, Carlo devoted all his time to drawing. A solitary man with a dog as a companion, he was enlisted and sent to the front, from which he returned shell-shocked. Over time, his condition worsened, and because he suffered from visions and persecution mania, he was institutionalized in the psychiatric hospital of Verona.
Today, Filippo and Carlo are respected and admired in the Museum of Art Brut in Lausanne.
