Ecriture en délire

After a troubled childhood and a turbulent adolescence, August Walla was diagnosed with schizophrenia and was finally admitted - along with his mother - to the Gugging hospital, near Vienna, in 1970. Resident of the Haus der Künstler (house of artists), he will remain there for the rest of his life. Expressing himself through photography, installation, diversion of objects and typing of manifestos, writing and drawing have become inseparable in his work. A key figure in art brut, collected by David Bowie, Walla is present in a number of collections around the world, including those of the MoMa (New York) or the Milwaukee Art Museum (Wisconsin).

Committed at 31 years old after participating in the Spanish Civil War, Carlo Zinelli is now seen as a major figure of art brut. Like tales illustrating episodes of his life before his internment, his iterative and dislocated drawings in which perspective is abandoned and replaced by interstitial writings aligned with the concept of “modernity”. Honored in many international exhibitions, Carlo Zinelli was exhibited in the Giardini at the 2013 Venice Biennale and we are pleased to present his work at Art Basel Paris 2024. Many of his works were donated to the Centre Pompidou in 2021.

Illiterate, Matsumoto is fascinated by writing. On calendar pages, brochures, questionnaires or forms, which he collects, he tirelessly copies literary texts, TV programs or notes of his own. Gathered and packaged in sealed envelopes, some of these writings are part of a fictitious epistolary collection. Presented for the first time in 2003 at the Collection of Art Brut (Lausanne), he was exhibited in 2015 at the Maison rouge (Paris) and in 2020 in Scrivere Designando : quand la langue cherche son autre, by curators Andréa Bellini and Sarah Lombardi, at the Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève. A significant number of his works was donated to the Centre Pompidou in 2021.

Joseph Ernest Ménétrier was born in Paris to baker parents. His father died when the boy was eight; the latter was then placed in a boarding school. In 1869 he entered into an apprenticeship with the engraver of the third republic medals. In addition, for four years he took drawing and modelling courses at an art school. Abruptly, his life turned upside down and he was admitted to the Ville-Evrard asylum, where he would stay until he died. He changed his identity then and adopted the pseudonym Emile Josome Hodinos. He passed his time at the hospital drawing innumerable plans for medals in graphite and India ink on which he made meticulous comments in handwritten texts signed with his[…]