Les demeures imaginaires / Imaginary dwellings

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All the years I have been researching documentation about art environments, I did not encounter any referral to a movie made in 1977, entitled Les demeures imaginaires, until some days ago I saw the announcement of an evening with open air cinema on July 6th, 2013, at the Art Brut Museum (Collection de l'Art Brut) in Lausanne.

French art critic and expert of art brut Laurent Danchin will host the evening and he sure will have interesting details to share, both about the makers of the films and the creators of art environments portrayed in these films.

Les demeures imaginaires is a remarkable production which presents the Watts Towers by Simon Rodia, the Junker Haus of Karl Junker and the Maison Picassiette by Raymond Isidore

The film, composed in 1975, probably was shot on 16mm color film, which makes it for our contemporary eyes, used as we have become to digital processing, a bit blurry and old-fashioned. It has an introduction with elements (children engaged in creative activities, the facade of the Mercery castle) which are only partly relevant to its main story. Of course, these are just matters of form.

What makes the film really remarkable in my opinion, is the circumstance that all contributions to the production have been made by psychiatrists.

Three psychiatrists contributing

The part about Simon Rodia (starting at 4'00") was provided by Irene Jakab (1919-2011), a psychiatrist of Pittsburgh University, co-founder of SIPE, the Société Internationale de Psychopathologie de l'Expression et d´art-thérapie. In this field she published Drawings and printings of mental patients, Budapest, 1956, later re-edited as Pictorial Expression in Psychiatry, Budapest, 1998.

I also found a note saying that Jakab in 1971 presented a film about the Watts Towers. It is unclear to me if the part in Les demeures imaginaires is equal to this one.

The part about Karl Junker (starting at 8'28") was provided by Kurt Behrends, a German psychiatrist from Düsseldorf. The film was sponsored by the Psychiatrische Abteilung des Institutes fùr Lebensberatung Stadt Düsseldorf  (Psychiatric department of the institute for counseling in existential questions). I couldn't trace any info about some special relation of dr Behrend with Karl Junker's creation.

The third part, about Raymond Isidore (starting at 17'30") was provided by Gaston Ferdière (1907-1990) who in the film is credited as the one who proposed the concept of the film.

Ferdière was a psychiatrist who liked the arts, wrote poetry and participated in surrealist circles in the Paris of the 1930s and later became doctor at the psychiatric hospital in Rodez in southern France. One of his patients was Antonin Artaud and the way Ferdière treated him raised a lot of controversy.

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Changing role of psychiatry

In the late 18th and early 19th century western psychiatrists like Lombroso, Morgenthaler, Prinzhorn, Meunier and Marie have been important in identifying and studying creative talents of inmates of their institutions. By collecting their works and publishing books about these patients they laid a foundation on which after WWII Dubuffet established his realm of art brut.   

But the times they are a-changin. In the 1970s new medicines became available for psychiatric patients and in many European countries the large psychiatric institutions were closed. Patients henceforth would live in small units or get care by outpatient treatment. Currently there are small scale studios/workshops that provide an opportunity for psychiatric patients to be active in a creative/artistic way.   

Am I wrong in supposing that above developments implicate that contemporary psychiatry no longer is present with regard to discussing developments in outsider art and art environments by non-professionals, and correspondingly. also that psychiatry currently no longer is seen as an interesting interlocutor by those who in our days lead the debate (art historians, curators, social scientists) ? 

If so, this could explain why during all those years I never saw a referral to the Les demeures imaginaires movie.

What I consider as a pity. Because this film by Eric Duvivier, dated in its design as it may be, has quite instructive scenes of some outstanding art environments. And also because, in retrospect, this film might be seen as a last tribute to a bygone era, a landmark that underscores the departure of psychiatry from the discussion about outsider art / outsider art environments.

Les demeures imaginaires (1975, 28'59")

Edited by Eric Duvivier

Laboratoire Sandoz, Basel, Switzerland

Jarvis Cocker, Journeys into the Outside

British singer Jarvis Cocker in 1998 made a trip along a lot of outsider environments in Europe and the USA in order  to produce a tv-movie, Journeys into the Outside, broadcasted by British Channel 4 in 1999.

This movie has become kind of a classic among those who are interested in outsider art and art environments by non-professionals. However, after the film was broadcasted, it didn't become available through any public medium.

But enthusiasts could rejoice: in April 2012 the movie was downloaded on YouTube  (however, since 2016 it is not available in some countries due to a copyright claim)

The movie comes in three parts. The first part deals with some classic French sites and when present those who created them. Jarvis' voice-over is in English, but his conversation with the creators of the sites is in French (subtitled in English).

These are the French art environments Jarvis Cocker visited:

* the sculpted rocks by Abbé Fouré (starts at 0'54")

* the mosaic decorated house and garden of Robert Vasseur, with Vasseur talking about the project (starts at 5'40")

* Bodan Litnianski's art environment, with Litnianski talking about the decorations and constructions he made (starts at 10'45")

* the house of monsieur G as it was some twelve years after he died, with fragments of the Prévost movie about monsieur G and his site, and an interview with Prévost (starts at 16'28")

* la Maison Picassiette, with an interview with a stepson of Raymond Isidore (starts at 21'25")

* the site of Chomo, with fragments of the Prévost movie, but without Chomo himself (starts at 27'00")

* facteur Cheval's Palais Idéal (starts at 36'35")

The second part deals with sites in the USA (out of topic in this blog, but of course very interesting).

In the third part Jarvis visits:

* Edward James' built structure in Mexico

* the Eben-Ezer Tower, with Robert Garcet giving his views (starts at 11'40") 

* the Junker House (before it became a museum) (starts at 22'0")

* Bruno Weber's site in Switzerland (starts at 30'24")

* Michel Thévoz of the Lausanne Art Brut Museum (starts at 34'50")

* Nek Chand's Rock Garden (starts at 42'38")

Journeys into the outside is a classic indeed. 

Bricoleurs de paradis / Handymen of paradise

flyer of the movie

A new French film shows some ten art environments in the northern and western areas of France.

Entitled Bricoleurs de paradis. Le Gazouillis des Èlèphants ¹ (2011, 52") the film has been made by French film maker Rémy Ricordeau and Bruno Montpied, who is an expert of and writer about art brut and French folk art environments. 

Bricoleurs is a nice French expression that denotes people who are active in making things in a do-it-yourself way, like those creators of art environments this blog is paying tribute to. 

The film indulges in the work of bricoleurs, like Arthur Vanabelle, Bodan Litnianski, Abbé Fouré, 

André Gourlet and André Hardy, creators who already have got more or less publicity. However, the film also shows creations of people about whom so far not so much has been written, like Alexis le Breton.

Aired on French TV (France 3, Normandie) on January 15, 2011, the film got a first public presentation on April 3, 2011 at the Halle Saint-Pierre in Paris.

At this occasion a new book about French art environments has been presented too: Bruno Montpied, Éloge des jardins anarchiques. More about this book in a separate post.

September 2021 the film was published on YouTube

Here is the film (53') as published on YouTube:

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¹ éléphants qui gazouillent means elephants who are chirping.... poetic, eh? To my best knowledge this phrase was coined by Alexis le Breton.

first published January 9, 2011, last revised December 2023

Clovis and Claude Prévost, Exposition multimédiale / Multimedia exhibition

The poster above announces an exhibition that from april 10 until july 10, 2010 could be visited in the French city of Melun, south-east of Paris.

I gladly refer to this expo because it gives me the opportunity to pay tribute to Clovis and Claude L. Prévost's documentary work with regard to art environments by non-professionals

Clovis Prévost (Paris, 1940) after his study of architecture at the École des beaux arts in Paris turned to film and photography. Together with his wife, Claude L. Prévost (who often provided the texts) for many years he has been active in documenting through film, video, photography and text a large number of -mainly French- art environments and their creators.

By these media and by panels the exhibition in Melun presented the creations of monsieur G, Robert Garcet, Raymond Isidore, Marcel Landreau, Irial Vets, Camille Vidal, Fernand Châtelain, Abbé Fouré, Facteur Cheval, paying a special tribute to Chomo.

During the exhibition the following films could be seen:

1. Monsieur G., dans le sanctuaire des lasers (Monsieur G, in the sanctuary of lasers), 1976, 26.37';
2. Chomo, le fou en bout de la flèche (the madman at the end of the arrow), 1978, 28";
3. La legende du silex de Robert Garcet (the legend of the flints of Robert Garcet), 1993, 41.40';
(In 1979 they made another film about Garcet, Eben-Ezer, la tour de l'Apocalypse, 27.50',)
4. Le facteur Cheval, où le songe devient la réalité (the dream becomes reality), 2001, 26.37';
5. Chomo, le débarquement spirituel - images de lumière (the spiritual landing - images of light), 30" (this is a compilation of 15 hours of film, shot between 1987 and 1990, by Chomo with the assistance of Clovis Prévost).

This is a selection of Prévost's filmography, but it gives an idea of the couple's field of work ¹.

Entitled Bâtisseurs de l'imaginaire (Builders of the imaginary) the couple put together a multimedia exposition featuring creators of art environments, which from 1975 on for over twenty years traveled through France and other European countries. With the same title between 1976 en 1981 a series of seven films about art environments was broadcasted on television. 

Clovis and Claude Prévost also made a number of books with photographs of art environments by non-professionals. In 1978 they published Raymond Isidore, dit Picassiette, de Chartres, Ed du Chène, -75 p.

One of the best known publications is (once more) entitled Les bâtisseurs de l'imaginaire, Ed de l'Est, 1990, -275 p.

A new, enlarged edition with 420 pages and 595 photos was published in 2016 by Ed Klincksieck. The video has an interview with Clovis and Claude Prevost during the presentation of the new edition at the Halle Saint Pierre in Paris.

The exhibition in Melun not only highlighted the creative activity of a number of outsider artists, it also was a tribute to the creative effort of the Prévost's to document these creations.

Documentation
* Information sheet about the exposition

note
¹  A biography, bibliography and filmography of Clovis and Claude L. Prévost was published in 2016 by Halle Saint Pierre, Paris.

Les bâtisseurs de l'imaginaire
Espace de Saint-Jean
26 place Saint-Jean
77000 Melun France