Art Brut Ressourcé La

In September 2026, the Halle Saint-Pierre (Paris) invites the Art Brut and contemporary art centre La « S  » Grand Atelier (Vielsalm, B) to engage with the concept of Art Brut ressourcé (Michel Thévoz, ed. Knock Outsider, Théories du K.O. 2025).

As Michel Thévoz points out, it must be acknowledged that ‘the heroic era of Art Brut and its favoured territories, psychiatric, carceral and spiritualist, are now a thing of the past’. Nevertheless, the author goes on, Art Brut has lost neither its vitality nor its virulence.

In particular, participatory workshops, of which La « S  » Grand Atelier is a leading example, represent one of the new sources of Art Brut in the 21st century.

The Halle Saint-Pierre, an essential venue for exhibitions, encounters and reflection, actively helps Art Brut to exist and evolve. It thus gives La « S  » Grand Atelier the opportunity not to remain on the margins but to make the margins a centre.

Art Brut ressourcé reveals the creative and innovative potential, and the collective artistic power, of a community of creators, most of whom live with an intellectual disability.

La « S  » Grand Atelier believes that every artist, whether or not they are considered atypical, can make a contribution to culture and society.

By emphasising artistic experimentation, collaboration, the collective, dialogue, reflection and artistic rigour, La « S  » Grand Atelier creates an environment in which creativity can flourish freely, where labels (disability versus non-disability) no longer hold, and where the boundaries between the worlds of art are dismantled.

On the occasion of this Art Brut ressourcé exhibition, the Halle Saint-Pierre sets out to loosen somewhat the map of Art Brut by inscribing within it the diversity of artistic forms and collaborations produced by this extraordinary Belgian community project.

The Halle Saint-Pierre and La « S  » Grand Atelier choose to embrace the legacy of Art Brut in order to uphold its humanist values, freeing themselves from the fantasies of primitivism that the art market still too often exploits.