Augustin Lesage, the factor Horse, Judith Scott, Aloïse… If their names are engraved in the history of the art, yet nothing the predisposed him to such a reputation. Internees, relegated to the bottom of the mines or just women, these renegades of the artistic sphere, deprived of any education and training, have forged the concept of art brut, a phrase coined by Jean Dubuffet in 1945.
The monumental work of the facteur Cheval, who dedicated 33 years of his life to the construction of a palace for a fairytale classified as a historic monument by Malraux, The cloisonne theater of Aloïse, a collection of his drawings of a colorful world, forming a roll of paper 14 metres long, the son inextricable of Judith Scott… this community is made up of a work fascinating and mysterious outcome of tormented spirits, for which to create becomes a vital need.
“Purity of inspiration”
Devoid of any intellectual approach, these men and women are usually revealed on the late, were able to draw inspiration in a world apart. Trapped in a life of misery, they were able to open a door to a parallel world where physical virtuosity free and wild has supplanted the worship of social. Fascinated by these beings to share, Anne-Caroline Pandolfo and Terkel Risbjerg spend a poignant book, through the extraordinary destinies of six of them.
“They open a door that all artists strive to open. There are born of the works fascinating, virtuosic that it’s hard to understand, because they have never learned nothing. There is a purity of inspiration which interests us all, says Anne-Caroline Pandolfo. We want to know that it is this place where they went in search of inspiration. We have all access, but we do not go there. Them, they allow it to live in an inner world, psychic.”
Encloses me if you can , is an album four hands, the authors involved without distinction on the narrative and the drawing. Their work intertwines brilliantly with the regularity of the waffle iron the classic pages more bold and exalted. For Le Figaro , the duo has chosen to decrypt one of these boards released from all constraints. He chose the story of Augustin Lesage, a miner, at the coal from the age of 14 years. When he hears a day of 1911 a voice say to him: “Augustine, one day you’ll be artist”, his life will resume colors. He was then 35 years old…the first day of the rest of his life.
THE BOX BD: decryption by Anne-Caroline Pandolfo and Terkel Risbjerg
Augustin Lesage, under the sway of his voice… Pandolfo/ Risbjerg/ Casterman
“This board brings to the stage the scale of Augustin Lesage to art, after the second revelation of the voice that had spoken to him the first time at the bottom of his mine. After having been summoned, he approached the circle of workers who practice spiritism, a custom common at that time in the early Twentieth century, miners in the North. That is particularly receptive, he is ready again to hear this word coming from somewhere to become someone else. And to save his life. He was 35 years old and already having spent so many years at the bottom of the mine behind him. Its life expectancy is low.
“the pages of the album reflecting the trigger of these artists are generally more free, contrasting with those of the more documented and échafaudées with a cut-a more classic-type waffle iron. To recreate this atmosphere, like a ghost in which surrounds the characters, we have preferred a box more fragmented and fluctuating, free from any rigidity. This suspended moment is relayed by unrealistic colours, forming a bluish glow, like a cloud enveloping and captivating. The first two boxes, devoid of decoration, to highlight the duplication of the protagonist, his or her soaring to another world. Augustine Lesage, the eyes closed, turns his gaze inward. He brings with him the drive that sees it materialize that voice represented by a speech bubble deformed penetrating directly into his head.
“In these pages, the more exalted, we are free from the constraints of the regular album. As a soaring opera to show our own freedom and sensitivity of artists”
“The last box, in wider plan, brings us back to reality. It presents a decor wispy where people barely sketched in, like extras, accentuate the lighting of the protagonist. Graphically, Augustine is a true character, with which one can dialogue. Eyes open this time, it as what happens in the inside is not that abstract thing. His transformation also integrates in the real. A new reality where the empty frames of old pictures exhibited on the walls illustrate its new artistic perspectives. To him to fill it, to achieve its new activity. In any freedom.
“In these pages, the more exalted, we are free from the constraints of the regular album. As a soaring opera to show our own freedom and sensitivity of artists. We are literally carried away by the letting go and the own release of the characters.”
Encloses me if you can, Anne-Caroline Pandolfo and Terkel Risbjerg, editions Casterman, 23 euros.
Exhibition of original artwork at the galerie Barbier et Mathon, 10, rue Choron 75009 Paris, until 15 June.
