Outdoor exposition at Facteur Cheval's Palais Idéal

panel presenting Chatelain's Humoristic Garden

pictures courtesy of Marie-José Georges, director Palais Idéal

From May 10th untill October 31 2013 the Palais Idéal has an outdoor exposition, presenting highlights of art brut, a project by its director Marie-José Georges in cooperation with Sarah Lombardi, director of the Collection d'Art Brut, Lausanne, and Laurent Danchin, art historian and specialist in the field of art environments.

Displayed  on panels of some 50x50 cm, as in above image, the exposition will introduce the visitors of the Palais Idéal to twenty-seven art brut artists and thirteen creators of art environments.

Focussing in this note in particular on environments, the topic of this blog, it is good to establish that Laurent Danchin in selecting the examples, has opted to show creations from several countries, in this way indicating the international dimension of the field, while he also shows various states of preservation, some extant, some in danger or abandonned.

another panel with Chomo's village of preludian art

The exposition has international toppers such as Nek Chand's Rock Garden (India) and Sabato (Simon) Rodia's Watts Towers (USA) and famous artists from Canada ("anarchitect" Richard Greaves), Finland  (Veijo Rönkkönen)  and Spain (Josep Pujiula i Vila).

France is represented by its three best known sites, Cheval's Palais Idéal, Isidore's Maison Picassiette and Abbé Fouré's Sculpted Rocks, supplemented with the environments created by Chomo, Fernand Chatelain, Marcel Dhièvre, Jean Linard and Robert Tatin.

The Palais Idéal hosting thousands of visitors each year, this exposition is a praiseworthy contribution to dissiminating information to the general public about outsider artists and art environments, topics that so far sparsely get attention by the mainstream media and the mainstream art world.

Documentation
The exhibition features a brochure in which all panels are included

update: Josep Pujiula, save the Argelaguer site

picture courtesy of Rafa Castells

Recently, I several times have updated my original post (January 9, 2009) about Josep Pujiula, who since the eighties  has been active in constructing an outsider art environment on the banks of the Fluvia river near the community of Argelaguer in Catalonia, Spain.

Local authorities early 2012 have decided that the high-rising wooden structures were not safe, especially in the case of fire, and ordered the dismantling of these constructs.

Next video (may 10, 2012), a news item on Catalonian tv, shows Pujiula busy in tearing down the structures (fragment starts at 2'40").

March 2013 an international petition has been organized to ask the local authorities to save the site, at least those parts of it with constructs like ponds, fountains and sculptures, made mainly from solid materials like steel and concrete.

Now it appears that on April 3, 2013 the Agència Catalana de l'Aigua (the Catalonian water authority) has ruled that all still existing constructs should be removed, so that the area along the river returns to its original state.

Inhabitants from Argalaguer and other interested parties have issued a Manifest (May 13, 2013), to save the site.

The Manifest (translated into english) says: 

1. The Argelaguer cabins constitute an architectural, cultural and social heritage with a great beauty and sentimental value

(click here to read the full text, as republished in OEE-texts)

Donato Zangrossi, Casa delle girandole/The house with the pinwheels

unknown photographer (picture made available 

by Zangrossi's daughter to the Allogi Barbario weblog )

Venice has a lot of creative and artistic constructs which are admired by people from all over the world. 

It also once had a site that was very loved and admired by the locals: the casa delle girandole, the house with the pinweels.

Life and work

Up to now little has been published on the internet about Donato Zangrossi (1905 - 1992), the man who has decorated the exterior of his house in the Campo Castelforte quarter of Venice with small colored wooden items and a large number of sefl-constructed colorful pinwheels.

He probably has begun decorating the facade in the sixties, untill in the eighties the exterior had become fully equipped with his self-constructed wooden items and pinwheels.

 

example of small wooden items in the decoration

After Zangrossi had died, in 1992, the decorations have no longer been cared for. The following picture, a screenprint from a 1995 video (see documentation), shows the facade as it was quite soon after its author had passed away.

Growing interest

Recently, in relation with the Italian costruttori di babele project, interest in Zangrossi's creation and comparable ones in the Veneto region has increased.

Giada Carraro, correspondent of the project, already wrote a thesis about the site, is active in collecting information and documentation about it and in general promotes interest in arte irregolari, inter alia by organizing conferences, such as one about the Casa Bepi Suá on Burano (end may 2013).

Documentation
* Article (april 6, 2013) in a local newspaper La Nuova (in italian)
* Article (april 7, 2013) in another local newspaper, about the costruttori di babele project  (in italian)
* Video "Il nonno bambino",1995, Acadamy of Fine Arts, Venice (two students researching the site)

Donato Zangrossi

Casa delle girandole

Rio Frescada

Campo Castelforte

Venezia, IT

no longer extant

Israele, l' Eremita di Capo Gallo/The hermit of Capo Gallo

the semaphore in Capo Gallo

Facing the Mediterranean, Capo Gallo is a natural area, since 2001 a natural reserve, north of Palermo, on the Italian island Sicily. Because of the proximity of the sea, the area has marine facilities, such as a lighthouse and an elevated building as in above picture, that once was a military lookout and semaphore. 

Life and works

More than a decade ago this building became the home of a hermit who is known as Israele, the name he has adopted.  

this picture and the next two: 

screenprints from the video (2008) by Guiseppe Tucci

Not much is known about his life. He was born in the early fifties of the former century, had a job as a mason, worked in Palermo and was a deeply religious man.

He has told a reporter who visited him, that in 1985 he had a dream that changed his life, convinced as he became by that dream that he had to be a prophet with the mission to save people's souls. 

After that dream he continued his job, adressing his colleagues with religious insights, and then, in 1997 he left wife and children, to restart his life as a hermit, first going to live in a cave in the seaside rocks in the Capo Gallo natural area, later squatting the no longer used and abandoned semaphore building in the same area.

Isaele in the course of the years has decorated this building in such a way, that it has become kind of a sanctuary.

The road uphill to this sanctuary has been signposted by Israele with small decorations, painted or made from pebbles, and mostly depicting a heart, suggesting this path is a Via Santa. 

 

The interior of the building is lavishly decorated. The walls have been geometrically divided into compartments, each of which is decorated with a large item, such as a portrait or a mosaic representation, surrounded by smaller items like stars, crosses or other signs.   

pictures of the interior: screenshots from 
the video by Ester Affronti (sept 2012)

To make his decorations Israele uses small pebbles, he collects on the beaches. He makes great use of the hexagram and other religious symbols.

It is noteworthy that there are no religious texts and inscriptions on the walls, except one above a clock reading ALLELUIAMEN. The appearance of the interior is rather quite, orderly and understated, which constitues a major difference with environments in the USA that include religious expressions, or one of the few european sites with such expressions. 

Outside, however, there is an inscripted text about the End of Times, the return of Gods kingdom, which will be accompanied by great destructions. (The full text is in OEE texts) 

Israele is a shy person. A visitor, who met him in 2010, has described him as a good looking man with dark, greying hair and a bushy greying beard, adding:  "He's articulate, and enthusiastic when talking about God" (Kate Ludlov's blog, 2010, see documentation).. 

Israele, however, is not eager at all to meet visitors, rather avoids them and he doesn't appear in the video's below. One may wonder if he agreed that the videos were recorded.

Documentation

* Post in Kate Ludlov's weblog of June 9, 2010 (in english)

* Article in LiveSicilia, august 20, 2010 (in Italian)
* Article by Gabriele Lombardo in Seven Radio, december 18, 2012, also on his blog Sveglaiti, April gli Occhi (febr 2013) (in Italian)
* Article by Eva di Stefano in Raw Vision, nr 78 (spring 2013)
* Video by Guiseppe Tucci (Youtube, 3'13", uploaded 2008)

* Video by Esther Affronti (Youtube, 10'48", uploaded sept 2012)

Israele

l'Eremita di Capo Gallo

Palermo, Sicily, IT

not open to the public

Pietro Moschini, Casa-Museo with sculptures and sculpted walls

pictures courtesy of Guido Votano 

"Tuscania è un paese di artisti" (Tuscania is a city of artists), as the website of the city says, referring to is history as a center of art from Etruscan times up to the present day. 

Announcing the opening in may (2013) of a new museum, the Casa-Museo Pietro Moschini, the city's website offers its readers a brief overview of arte irregolare, referring to Bonaria Manca, inhabitant of the city, and Pietro Moschini, who all his life has lived there. 

Life and works

Born in Tuscania, Pietro Moschini (1923-2011), after having had some elementary schooling, went to work as a shepherd and a farmhand. 

Following an artistic impulse, in 1952 he made his first sculpture. During the rest of his life, he has been active in sculpting, which has resulted in hundreds of works, collected partly in his house in Tuscania, partly in a summerhouse out of town. 

He would work in wood and stone, not only making isolated works, but also creating ensembles sculpted in high-relief on walls, in this way transforming his house into an art environment. 

During most of his life, Moschini's work has gone unnoticed. 

However, it so happened that around 2011 Pavel Konecny, a collector of outsider art living in the Czech Republic, came along pictures on the internet of Moschini's creations, made by tourists who rather coincidentally had met the artist and had published photo's of the sculptures on Flickr. 

Through through Konecny came into contact with Mario Ciccioli, an artist living in Tuscania, who informed him that Moschini very recently was deceased. Konecny travelled to Italy and together with Ciccioli talked with Moschini's daughter, Rosaria Falasca-Moschini, who was the inheritor and wanted to have the collection saved for the future as much as possible. 

This resulted in a plan to transform Moschini's house in Tuscania into a small museum, a plan that with the support of various parties involved, has been be realised indeed. 

The opening of the Casa-Museo Pietro Moschini on May 11, 2013 has been embedded in a small festival around arte irregolare, withvarious activities, including an exposition of paintings from Bonaria Manca's house.

Documentation/more pictures 
* weblog Babeleviterbo with a post about Moschini
* website Cafe Boheme with an interview with Pavel Konecny
* article in SPACES website

Casa-Museo Pietro Moschini  
Tuscania (Viterbo), IT
via della Scrofa
opening hours not yet available

New weblog about art environments and irregular art in Tuscia, Italy

Begun in august 2010 with a new website, followed in november 2011 by a book and also manifesting itself by various expositions, the Italian Costruttori di Babele research project is proceding steadily.

In april 2013 a new weblog, BabeleViterbo, dealing with arte irregolare e percorsi babelici nella Tuscia (irregular art and babylonian pathways in Tuscia), authored by Mario Ciciolli and Gabriele Mina,  has been released.

With the Casa Museo Pietro Moschini as a center point, the blog will report about irregular art and art environments in Tuscia..

On May 11, 2013 this museum has been officially inaugurated and that weekend there have been a number of other events as well, as shown in the following poster. (Pictures of the festivities in Picasa webalbums)

The new weblog already has introductions to Bonaria Manca, Santa Bassaneli, Domenico Brizi, Vinzenzo Lucchesi and, of course, Pietro Moschini.

Gilles Ehrmann, Les inspirés et leurs demeures/The inspired and their abodes Exposition Brest 2013

screenprint of the webpage of the Artothèque

France's westernmost city, Brest, this spring (2013) has a manifestation entitled l'Art Brut à l'Ouest (Art Brut in the West).

Besides various lectures, film screenings and theater performances, there will be expositions featuring the creative constructs of Abbé Fouré and Per Jain.

And there will also be an exposition entitled Gilles Ehrmann, Les inspirés et leur demeures, 1962-1982. 

The art library of the Musée des beaux arts presents photographies by french photographer Gilles Ehrmann, from the collection of FRAC (Fonds Regional d'Art Contemporaine) Bretagne, showing pictures he made of art brut artists and environments.

This is a good opportunity to pay attention in this blog to the photographer, whose photobook, published in 1962, has marked french developments in the fifties around art brut artists and environments

Gilles Ehrmann

Born in Metz, Gilles Ehrmann (1928-2005), after WWII studied decorative arts in Paris, started a theater group and ventured making a movie, to subsequently turn to photography, working with a big high-quality camara, making portraits of Picasso and other french artists.

Through his relationship with artistic circles, including the surrrealists, he may have been put on the track of people who were or had been active in making art brut creations, a topic of interest that in the fifties in France only just began to develop.

In any case in 1956 Ehrmann decided to travel the country to portray these people and/or their creations, like the Palais Idéal of facteur Cheval, the Rochers Sculptés by Abbé Fouré or the Maison Picassiette by Raymond Isidore.

This adventure resulted in the book published in 1962 entitled Les inspirés et leurs demeures (The inspired and their abodes), with portraits of Gaston Chaissac, Fréderic Séron, Hyppolite Masse and Joseph Marmin and images of the Palais Idéal (Cheval), the Rochers Sculptés (Fouré) and the Bomarzo gardens in Italy.

Although fellow photographers such as Robert Doisneau in the fifties also made pictures of art brut artists and their constructs (naming them bâtisseurs chimériques, fanciful builders), Ehrmann's 1962 publication, with an introduction by André Breton, can be seen as the first coherent presentation in book form that introduced the general public in France to a phenomenon that before that time was rather unknown.

The book has become a collectors item, occasionaly available antiquarian.

In 1958 Ehrmann became connected to the french illustrated monthly Réalités, a magazine that -like other magazines- in the fifties and sixties, was important in informing the general public about social and cultural developments before this role partially was taken up by television.

Documentation/pictures
* Article in Wikipedia (in french)
* Centre Pompidou website documenting Ehrmann's work, with titles and pictures

Les inspirés et leurs demeures
Artothèque du Musée des Beaux Arts
24 rue Traverse
Brest FR

Musée des beaux arts weergeven op een grotere kaart