Livre - When the curtain never comes down

Most self-taught artists can be perceived as performance artists. Their work is infused with daily rituals, public actions, gestures, and enactments, defining a lifelong artistic practice for which the curtain never comes down. Beyond paintings and sculpture, the exhibition includes ceremonial clothes, kinetic apparatuses, ephemeral installations, writings, fragments of ever-changing constructions, music, recordings, and other statements that have been captured by photographers and filmmakers. The inventive devices and countless strategies these artists configure are expressions of an alter ego, which they assume for its power to transform the world and, above all, to transform their own connections to reality. Historically, collectors and museums have prioritized artworks that are readily collectible and more conventional in their materials and techniques—an attitude that elucidates a direct relationship between conservation and recognition. The exhibition, which gathers 27 artists from around the world, delves into an underside of self-taught art and art brut, opening a door to the study of its neglected facets.