Théâtres – ART BRUT La collection

Theater is the central theme of this fourth volume in the seriesArt Brut – The Collection, published to coincide with the fourth Biennale of Outsider Art. After having explored architecture, vehicles and bodies, we now turn our attention to theater, to develop this theme under its various aspects. The simplest example: the description of theatrical architecture, as in the work of Eugen Gabritschevsky and Victorien Sardou. Other artists create works that are very closely related to the world of theater, without necessarily being part of it. Thus, for Giovanni Battista Podestà or Vahan Poladian, a public stage is a place where they can mount a “performance”, a show in response to a society that confines them to its margins. Their – ephemeral – approach uses clothing and accessories as a means of communication to make their voices and protests heard. Other artists conceive complete cosmogonies which take the gigantic form of a fantastic and phantasmagorical world put in scene, following the example of the work of Aloïse Corbaz, to be seen like a “theater of the universe”.
This book includes more than a hundred illustrations, some published for the first time. All have been chosen to allow the reader to explore the theme of theater in Outsider Art.