This volume, published for the exhibition Michel Nedjar, presents the vast production of this artist, whose works were included by Jean Dubuffet in the Collection de l’Art Brut in 1981.

Nedjar began his artistic production in 1969, after he happened to see a picture of a drawing by Aloïse Corbaz in an encyclopedia of painting. It was then that he decided to become a self-taught artist. His oeuvre, produced over a span of fifty years, is particularly interesting for its abundance and diversity. Noteworthy are the dolls of his “Chairdâmes” series, which he began making in 1978 using rags and recycled materials soaked in paint, mud, and sometimes blood. Leafing through this volume, the reader will discover pencil, chalk, acrylic, and wax drawings. But cloth, rags, shmattes in Yiddish, are the true heart of both his creative production and his life. A tailor by profession like his father before him, he often employs shmattes and needle. This is the case, for example, with his “Sewn Dolls” series, and more recently, his “Sewn Objects” or “Sewing” series, compositions of all kinds of fliers, printed images, photographs, and packaging that he collects, assembles, and sews onto cloth or paper.

Exhibition

Collection de l’Art Brut, Lausanne | June 9 – October 29, 2023