Monster

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.

Heir to the Russian aristocracy of the 19th century, this renowned biologist fell into madness at the height of his scientific career. Interned in Germany, he threw himself body and soul into the creation of thousands of pages covered in gouache, charcoal or watercolour; thus opening, like a window in his cell, an escape into an infinite universe, a metaphysical escape. His fantastic works, when they are not abstract, are populated with ghostly characters: hybrid monsters, multicoloured insects, characters with disproportionate eyes, or small beings with the appearance of mutants.
His work, which captivated Daniel Cordier and Jean Dubuffet, is represented in important collections across the world, and thanks to a gift by Cordier, is in the permanent collection of the Paris Pompidou Center.

Convinced of his ability to become a wolf, this young artist from Madrid is fascinated by the Kafkaesque metamorphosis found in the world of comics and mythology. As polymorphic as he is, his work consists of drawings, sculptures and performances, and urges us to accept our own repressed gifts for shape-shifting. Promoted by the gallery since 2016, he had a major show that same year at the Biennale de l’image possible in Liège, Belgium. In 2022, his work was featured in the exhibition Photo | Brut #2 at the Botanique in Brussels. His work is now part of several major European collections of contemporary art such as those of Antoine de Galbert, or Laurent Dumas.

In the streets of Havana, everyone knows Jorge Alberto Cadi as « El Buzo » - the diver - because he’s constantly searching material for his works in the city’s abandoned objects. Boltanskian by his memorial use of photography, Warholian by his taste for stitching images together, Cadi always seeks to reveal what these photographs are hiding. Exhibited for the very first time in 2019 by the gallery, then in 2022 at Paris Photo, he was presented the same year in the 2nd part of Photo brut which, after the Rencontres de la photographie d’Arles, was hosted at the Centrale and the Botanique, in Brussels. His work is included in the collections of the Musée national d’Art moderne (Pompidou). In 2023, he was exhibited by Sophie Calle at the Musée Picasso.

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.