Tag: outsider art

Postcard from Montpellier, France: ‘Objectotherapy’ in Sete

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A vintage French postage stamp featuring a graphic depiction of a waterfront building in Sete, with a boat in the foreground and hills in the background, labeled "REPUBLICQUE FRANÇAISE" and marked with a value of "25F".

Above: Detail of one assemblage found in glass display cases of “Les Vitrines de Bernard Belluc” at MIAM – Museum of Modest Arts in Sete.

Maybe you first need to cue up a little Felliniesque background music for this post. MIAM – Musee International des Arts Modestes has its own hymn or anthem, composed and performed by Pascal Comelade (1955-) and General Alcozar, to celebrate the opening of the museum in 2000.

MIAM in Sete

“At the turn of the 1980s, the notion of Modest Arts was coined by Herve Di Rosa to designate a set of objects that elude all classifications and do not belong to Great Art. Popular figures, Action Figures, amateur paintings, devotional objects, tourist objects, advertising signs, body arts, video game imagery, from here or elsewhere, these abandoned or downgraded productions challenge us and form the labile territory of the Modest Arts, a dynamic space with shifting borders, capable of constantly renewing itself.” The Modest Arts, MIAM website

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Postcard from Marseille, France: Cantini’s insider to outsider art

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A close-up view of a postmarked envelope featuring various stamps, including a red priority mail stamp and green stamps depicting abstract figures, along with handwritten details and doodles.
Above: Postal art incorporated in a collage by Louis Pons.

Above: “Les Fleurs et le Matin,” Alfred Lombard (1884-1973), 1913

I kill time with the strokes of the pen…. It will take a long time.”

Louis Pons (1927-2021)

A palace built at the tail end of the 17th century by wealthy trade merchants was acquired a century later by the artistic son of a stonemason. With a ready supply of fine marble at hand, Jules Cantini’s (1826-1916) attraction to sculpture was only natural. He designed altars for some of Marseille’s most important churches.

A statue atop a monument stands in a park with people seated at tables below it, surrounded by trees and a blue sky.
1894 “Monument des Mobiles” funded by Jules Cantini.

Retaining the profitable marble business of his father, Jules began to assemble a major art collection. For his native city, Cantini underwrote the construction of a landmark fountain and memorial designed by architect Gaudensi Allar (1841-1904) and dedicated to the citizens who perished during the 1870 Franco-Prussian War.

Cantini bequeathed his home to the Marseilles for use as a museum dedicated to decorative arts. The city opened the museum in 1936, eventually spotlighting emerging trends in French art from 1900-1980. A random sampling of works are found below.

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