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 until October 31 2013 the Palais Idéal had 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 introduced the visitors of the Palais Idéal to 27 art brut artists and 13 creators of art environments.

Focusing in this note in particular on art 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 abandoned.

The exposition had 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 art environments created by Chomo, Fernand Chatelain, Marcel Dhièvre, Jean Linard and Robert Tatin.

this picture from website 

Les rochers de l Abbé Fouré shows part of the exhibition

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