André Robillard
L’art brut ou singulier, celui des autodidactes ou des aliénés, est depuis longtemps accueilli par les grands musées. Il est moins fréquent d’aller le voir dans une institution qui en est aussi un des lieux de production, l’asile psychiatrique. C’est ce que propose le Musée Art et déchirure à Sotteville-lès-Rouen (Seine-Maritime), installé dans le pavillon La Roseraie, un bâtiment autrefois réservé aux femmes installé au milieu d’un parc, mis à la disposition du musée par le centre hospitalier du Rouvray.
Art brut or singular art, that of the self-taught or the insane, has long been welcomed by the great museums. It is less common to see it in an institution that is also one of its production sites: the psychiatric asylum. This is what the Musée Art et déchirure in Sotteville-lès-Rouen (Seine-Maritime) offers, housed in the La Roseraie pavilion, a building formerly reserved for women set in the middle of a park, made available to the museum by the Rouvray hospital.
Interned since his teens, André Robillard has built his life within the hospital. It was around the age of 30 that this French artist began to create rifles with materials found here and there. Discovered by Jean Dubuffet and encouraged by Michel Thévoz (then director of the Art Brut collection), he continues to create hybrid objects, from machine guns to Sputnik. André Robillard’s incredible story has participated to his international recognition. Present in the collections of the LaM (France), Whitworth (UK) or MAC’s (Belgium), he was particularly celebrated in the closing exhibition of la maison rouge (Paris) in 2018. A significant number of his works was donated to the Centre Pompidou in 2021.