Charleroi (Belgium). The “S” Grand Atelier is a very special place. Nestled in Vielsalm in a former barracks on the edge of the Ardennes forest, this raw and contemporary art center is a place of exchange and experimentation like few others in the world. Founded in 1992 to welcome artists with disabilities, it set itself, from the start, a high level of visual and artistic standards, a thousand miles from art therapy or occupational activity. Since the 2000s, contemporary artists have been invited there for co-creation work with residents; the disciplines are reinterpreted, the codes replayed. The work of decompartmentalizing the “S” Grand Atelier is beginning to bear fruit since the works of its artists are shown in major exhibitions or acquired by institutions such as the Center Pompidou. Exhibiting in a contemporary art venue is “a political fight which contributes to the “de-visibilisation” of these artists beyond a marginal and folkloric posture, without making them fit into the norms”, believes Anne-Françoise Rouche, founder of the Atelier.
BPS22 presents “Novê Salm”, a generous exhibition where drawing, painting, textile design, ceramics and video compete with colors, materials and shapes to create a world where we dream, where we are afraid, where we love, where we sing, where we laugh, where we eat, where we race in cars and where we visit other planets. The explored territory opens with that of the forest which adjoins the center where many artists like to venture. Many of the works of the “S” are collective creations which deconstruct the fantasy of the raw artist isolated in an obsessive practice, such as the poetic glass greenhouse and its panels decorated with a pantheon of characters imagined by Irène Gérard and Michiel De Jaeger, or the series of photographic images, vibrant and unreal, taken in the forest by Sébastien Delahaye, Barbara Massart and the Cadeau Miroir collective.
For almost two years, Violaine Lochu collaborated with four artists from La “S” whose use of a standardized language is reduced. With them, she sought to invent modes of communication where voice, body, and drawing meet. The large hall serves as the public square of the dream village of “Novê Salm” with its ceramic fountain and its statue of Johnny. From the ceiling hang aerial paper sculptures by Nicolas Chuard, inspired by the drawings of Marcel Schmitz. On a large table, dishes, dishes and ceramic cutlery made collectively in memory of a carnival banquet on the lawns of La “S” Grand Atelier.
The pleasure that one can feel during this walk in this village is undoubtedly also due to the absence of theoretical discourse. It is the raw expression of life.
