A SUGGESTION BY ANGELA OESTMANN

Always on the look-out for exceptional museums and exhibition I came across a small but wonderful museum with a very moving exhibition:

JEAN-MARIE MASSOU, THE GIANT OF THE LOT

Located in the heart of Brussels, the Art et marges museum, museum of outsider art, questions art and its borders. (From the website)

This museum which shows art brut of different media, paintings, sculptures, but also audio files has changing temporary exhibitions of artists on the margin, sometimes patients of psychiatric hospitals. The current exhibition which lasts until 19 March has touched me deeply.

Jean-Marie Massou (1950-2020) lived in the Lot with his mother and grandmother who were cook and gardener in “grandes maisons”. Jean-Marie started to dig in the garden of the houses where his mother and grandmother worked. That was not much to the liking of the owners and Jean-Marie was send into a psychiatric hospital where he was – understandably – very unhappy. So, then his mother bought a small house with a large terrain in the middle of a forest and let Jean-Marie do what he needed to do. He had lots of imagination and was convinced that there are extra-terrestrial mysterious messengers for which he must be prepared. That is his important mission. He dug out enormous tunnels, found lots of fossils and minerals and other extraordinary objects. These objects were for him the proof of the existence of the extra-terrestrials. Since he couldn’t read or write he dictated his stories and dreams to his mother who wrote them down faithfully and did recordings.

To see the photos and videos of his works, his paintings, collages and objects was most impressive. But just as much as his imagination I was touched by the infallible support by his mother who allowed him this life and helped him in many ways.

The exhibition isn’t large but contains many different items, so it’s worth to take some time.

The next exhibition in this museum shows a project of photos and installations made in collaboration with residents of La Devinière, a centre for institutional psychotherapy.

https://artetmarges.be/en/index.html