our special correspondent in Grenoble, france,

Antoine de Galbert, the return. The red house, his anchor paris near the Bastille, which was shown during fourteen years the art and its collectors as a person, closed at the end of 2018, leaving the lovers of the third kind, as a vast sigh of nostalgia. Where were we now find the freedom to see, to love, or even reject, without passing through the common law?

Since the closing of his adventure in paris, this gentleman of the arts has been extended. He has given his extraordinary collection of headdresses and items of costumes at the Museum of Confluences in Lyon, which sets out this summer 336 on the 520 ( The world in the head , until 15 march 2020). He has composed one of the best sixteen Cabinets of curiosities of the exhibition of the same name by the Fund Helene and Edouard Leclerc for Culture in Landerneau, offering a selection of works dealing with the animal condition in a contemporary spirit, creating a new Noah’s ark populated with chimeras and dreams black: rabbit slippers by Wim Delvoye, a snake with legs by Joan Fontcuberta, octopus dripping of Thomas Feuerstein (FHEL, until 3 November). The 50th Rencontres d’arles this summer, he actively participates in the exhibition of his friend and accomplice Bruno Decharme, Photo|Gross, collection Bruno Decharme & company , which is rocking the festival-goers by his originality, his brutality, his poetry strange and his fantasies on the border of madness (park Workshops, general Mechanical engineering).

when Antoine de Galbert has been collecting the crucifix, and the art brings all of the possible interpretations. Antoine de Galbert

Then, when he puts himself uncovered in the 130 works to the Museum of Grenoble, it is a self-portrait without dodge, which will be familiar to the faithful of the house red like the pioneers who came to her gallery experimental in Grenoble in the 1980s ( Travel Memories , until 28 July). A true Story , the first title of these forty years of encounters with art that Antoine de Galbert has refused modesty, or pride (the mysteries of communicating vessels! ) and one that exists only through the work of the artist, of micro-narratives, Stéphane Thidet, A true story , 2016, suspended above the water from the patio at the end point of a route fiercely existential.

“Antoine de Galbert was born in a large family of the Dauphiné, rather conservative and turned to the ancient art; he chose to dedicate his life to art, rather contemporary. If you own a certain history of art, away of feelings marked, be on the lookout, on the watch, in tension, such are the obsessions of a man whose existence proves to be inseparable from his activity as a collector”, and this, with a frank admiration, Sophie Bernard, chief Curator in charge of collections of modern and contemporary at the Museum of Grenoble. This Breton assures the commissioner of Souvenirs of travel , the Collection of Antoine de Galbert , with Guy Tosatto, director of the Museum of Grenoble, also pure dauphinois, but ethnic Italian.

Post-war German tortured Arnulf Rainer, “Angst”, 1969-1973 [Anxiety]. Oil pastels on test gelatin-silver print laid on wood (120 x 88 cm). Photo credit: Alain Basset © Arnulf Rainer, by courtesy of m Bochum, Germany. ALAIN BASSET 0607535207

“Constantly, the fan ensures it is put to distance himself, circumspect as to the narrative of its own history (…) Singular, unclassifiable, and as embodied, the collection of Antoine de Galbert is not least driven by a few major trends where the sensuality and instinct take precedence over a priori knowledge, where the individual strong to outweigh the artistic movement” points out the young huntress Diana, who shares with her about a mixed formation, Sciences po, and art, that combines two continents separate.

Checks in bursts with sculptures of body twisted in one last spasm by the Flemish Berlinde De Bruyckere, drawings torture of Philippe Vandenberg (seen at The red house with the said Berlinde), the metamorphoses extreme, Urs Lüthi, Jürgen Klauke, Dieter Appelt in a post-war German tortured by the war and its disasters (precautions are put in place to prevent the young public).

both ubiquitous in the art world and fiercely reserved, Antoine de Galbert is the king of the dodge, the guest delightful to the official table of the inaugural dinner of the 50th Rencontres d’arles, and the utopian, which does not require that to escape on the way to grammarian. Even after fourteen years of openings in his own house, he keeps one hand secret and politeness mark the limit beyond which your ticket is no longer valid.

Sophie Bernard the class, following in the wake of the sociologist and historian of art, Raymonde Moulin, in the collections of type dionysian rather than apollonian. And, as described by the philologist, psychoanalyst and women of letters Julia Kristeva, between the category of “Comedians” who “strolls the Flea, at antique dealers, lovers of oddities, magicians,” and that of “Fetishists”, because, according to Brassaï, “the fetish is a sorcerer, a shaman, who expels his obsessions in thésaurisant those of the other; it prepares us for the catharsis, the purification.” Famous figures with twisted faces of Duchenne de Boulogne to the cries of the poet Antonin Artaud, self-portraits move from Arnulf Rainer ( Angst , 1969-1973) the heart beating silently, like a beacon in the night, of men, of Christian Boltanski (presented at The maison rouge in 2008), the reason is often loses his thread, not the logic of the human being.

Andre Kertesz, Distortion no. 45″, 1933 (edition of 1970). Test gelatin-silver print in (17.2 x 24.7 cm).Photo credit: Cloé Beaugrand © RMN-Grand Palais – Management copyright André KerteszDistorsion n°45, 1933 (edition of 1970)Test, gelatin-argentique17,2 x 24,7 cmCrédit photo : Cloé Beaugrand © RMN-Grand Palais – Gestion with respect to copyright

“Collecting is an exciting and gentle therapy which allows us to provide a taste, and regardless of whether it is good or bad because it assumes that we,” warns Antoine de Galbert, 63 years, in a preamble to a catalog that is also a biography, lucid and worried. Those who have been to all his appointments from 2004 to 2018 in The red house, since the inaugural exhibition The intimate, the collector behind the door in the summer of 2004, will find a number of its blows of heart, discoveries, accumulations worthy of a treaty freudian ( I do not like to throw away , Ben? 2015 is the poster in the city), and a choice as personal as possible.

Gilbert & George, curiously wise for a time, Louis Soutter, “Square”, 1937. Ink on paper (44.1 x 58,2 cm). Photo credit: Jochen Littgemann, Berlin/Courtesy Galerie Karsten Greve Paris, Cologne, St. Moritz Louis SoutterParvis, 1937Encre on papier44,1 x 58,2 cmCrédit photo : Jochen Littgemann, Berlin/Courtesy Galerie KarstenGreve Paris, Cologne, St. Moritz

here They are, dispersed as a full menu, magnifying chapters as pieces of resistance, to enjoy, to meditate, to digest: the Builders of the imaginary (Augustin Lesage, Michael Borremans) to the Conceptual (Claude Rutault, Roman signer), of the Belgians in British Kitsch (Gilbert & George, curiously wise for once), the Madness(s) (a crowd) to Figures of the body (Brassaï, Kertész, but also the macabre Joel-Peter Witkin and the Japanese that exceeds his / her disability, Mari Katayama, star of this year at the 58th Venice Biennale)…. It exudes something of rock, trendy hard rock, where the meaning of life pass by the cry, the pain, the enjoyment, and the fear of the void.

“By gleaning works that reflect their dreams, their fantasies or their fears, the collectors perform an introspective and reflective journey to try to understand the world (…) and Their collections will turn off with them because they reveal a genuine part of themselves, where memories brought back from the trip as much geographical as mental, often have meaning only in their eyes. Later, their work is the most well-known will join the museums; the other, those that history will not be retained, will be stored in the silence of the granaries. But after us the deluge”? This is Antoine de Galbert who says it.

Tetsumi Kudo, “untitled”, 1971. Plastic, resin and electronic components under a lid of plexiglas (21 x 53 x 53 cm). Photo credit: Cloé Beaugrand © ADAGP, Paris, 2019 Tetsumi KudoSans title, 1971Plastique, resin and electronic components under bell plexiglas21 x 53 x 53 cmCrédit photo : Cloé Beaugrand © ADAGP, Paris, 2019

● “Memories of Travel, The collection Antoine de Galbert”, until 28 July at the Museum of Grenoble.

‘PHOTO | GROSS, COLLECTION BRUNO DECHARME & COMPANY”, until 22 September at the 50th Rencontres d’arles”.

“Cabinets of curiosities”, up until November 3, the FHEL of Landerneau, near Brest.

“The world in mind, the donation of Antoine de Galbert”, until march 15, 2020, at the Musée des Confluences in Lyon