Tomasz Machciński, Michel Nedjar, Miroslav Tichy… in Vulnérables

He is the most widely exhibited and published living art brut artist, yet the extraordinary trajectory of this Frenchman raises a question that is rarely addressed: that of the impermanence of art brut. Discovered by Jean Dubuffet at a time when he was working on the resurgence of the symbolic body, he allowed himself to become the protean artist we know and who, in his creation, embodies absolute freedom. His work can be found in countless collections, and he was the first artist brut to enter the collections of the Musée national d’art moderne (Pompidou). Exhibited at the Monnaie de Paris, the Albertina Museum and the Mona, Michel Nedjar has been the subject of nine monographic exhibitions.

Having become, in a decade, one of the most recognized contemporary brut artists, this autistic native of California is sometimes compared to Cy Twombly: while the latter deconstructs language, the former builds it. Since 2010, the gallery has contributed to its international recognition by organizing several exhibitions and publishing the only monograph available to date, enriched with an essay by Richard Leemann. Present in countless public and private collections - including those of the MoMA and Pompidou –, Dan Miller’s work was also part of the official selection of the 2017 Venice Biennale.

Trained in academic painting, Tichý secretly engaged in photography only in 1970. Obsessive, if not fetishistic, he photographs women surreptitiously with the camera he built. His blurry photographs, sometimes enhanced with a pen border, are part of an immutable process, to which he adhered until the 1990s. Discovered by Roman Buxbaum, he was soon supported by Harald Szeemann. In 2005, he received the discovery prize at the Rencontres d’Arles and was given a major retrospective at the Centre Pompidou three years before his death. In 2019, he is again presented in Arles for the exhibition event, Photo brut.

Tomasz Machciński (1942–2022), a war orphan and Polish laborer, dedicated 50 years of his life to creating over 22,000 photographic self-portraits. Ten years before Cindy Sherman, Machciński embarked on an intense quest for identity. Recently discovered, this monumental work has been acclaimed at the Rencontres d’Arles, Paris Photo, the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, and the Independent Art Fair in New York.

• According to the artist’s wishes and in agreement with the Machciński Foundation, only 2,500 photographs from the estate will eventually be available for sale.