Anna Zemankova in her apartment, Prague, 1980, Photo: Jan Reich. Archives de la Collection de l’Art Brut, Lausanne.
Michael Golz at the Collection de l’Art Brut, 2017. Photo: Catherine Borgeaud Papi, Archives de la Collection de l’Art Brut, Lausanne
Saturday, October 19th
2:30 PM
Hotel Drouot
9, rue Drouot
rsvp: info@outsiderartfair.com
La Collection de l'Art Brut Lausanne presents an afternoon film screening of two documentaries featuring art brut artists directed by Philippe Lespinasse, a French director who has worked with the museum for many years. Through the screening of these two movies, the museum gives the audience a chance to “meet” two of its self-taught artists, and to discover the context in which their works were produced. Art brut is very much present in the contemporary art scene, but the artists themselves often remain in the shadows. This screening and the following discussion intend to put them in the spotlight.
These two movies are the most recent works directed by Lespinasse for the museum. They were commissioned to accompany the monographic exhibitions dedicated to Michael Golz and Anna Zemànkovà in 2017.
Anna Zemànkovà (1908-1986) was born in Olomouc (Czech Republic). She worked as a dental mechanic before marrying and giving birth to two sons. She and her family moved to Prague in 1948. At the age of 52, Zemànkovà fell into depression. From then on, she began to paint, allowing her to access a parallel world, which she found more gratifying than the real world. Through her work, Zemànkovà had the feeling of capturing magnetic forces that usually escape representation. This belief connects her to spiritualist creators.
Zemànkovà would usually dedicated the first hours of the day to her creative activities, between 4 and 7 AM.. The patterns of her compositions, essentially flowers or fantastical plants, slowly emerge during their execution. In addition to pastel and ink drawing, she used her own original techniques since 1969. Later on, she also painted on silk or satin embroidered with pearls and glitter, or enhanced with cut-outs and collages.
Michael Golz was born in 1957 in Munich, Germany. He suffers from a mental disability, the result of a disease contracted as a child. His mother encouraged him to express himself through art at a very early age. At the age of seven, he was enrolled in a specialized institution. He continued his artistic work there and made his first map drawings around 1968. At the end of his schooling, Golz worked as a gardener in Mülheim an der Ruhr. Around 1977, he began the creation of Athos, a fictional world, to which he devoted himself fully from 2012.
Made up of drawings and writings rich in neologisms, Michael Golz's universe develops day after day in the form of large topographic maps, including views of landscapes and genre scenes.
Sarah Lombardi is an art historian and has been the director of La Collection de l’Art Brut since March 2013. As soon as she joined the institution, she focused on the growth of the museum’s collections and created a new editorial series entitled Art Brut, La collection, which accompanies art brut biennials. These thematic exhibitions highlight pieces from the museum’s collections. She has also written numerous articles on art brut, and edited several publications on the topic.
Philippe Lespinasse is a journalist, a movie director and a teacher. He works for French public television (Arte, France 3, France 5). He directed monographic movies and wrote texts on numerous art brut artists, including Paul Amar, Guo Fengyi, Richard Greaves, and Ataa Oko. He has been collaborating with the Collection de l’Art Brut since 2003.
