PARIS.- In 2021, the Centre Pompidou - Musée national d'art moderne, received an exceptional donation of Outsider Art from the Bruno Decharme collection, consisting of 921 works by 242 artists. This ensemble comprises works from the domain of the visual arts, the graphic arts, and photography.

“Écrits Dissidents” is the fifth themed presentation to come out of the donation of Outsider Art by Bruno Decharme. Following its inauguration in 2021, the exhibition was redesigned in March 2022, with “Sous le signe du bricolage”, followed by “Autour d’un ailleurs” in March 2023. In June 2023, the exhibition focused on works relating to female mediums in “Les femmes médiumniques”.

Writing often features in outsider art, whether slipped into the interstices and around the figures, or used as a plastic sign with a rhythmic and sometimes phonetic value. Painted or drawn, embroidered or engraved in the seclusion of an asylum or in social isolation, writing conceals within itself the intimate visionary and epistolary narrative of often autodidact authors. Some see the power to summon higher forces in this illegible writing; others draw on geometry to reinvent the alphabet or explore the voluble character of calligraphy. Still others seem to ignore all limits and aim to achieve a vertiginous expansion of the inscription. All draw upon the creative potential of this fertile combination of writing and image to extend the possibilities of communication, of which they thwart the codes with subversive inventiveness, touching “the most resistant base of cultural conditioning, its roots, i.e. words and their usual presentation” (Jean Dubuffet).

The donation by Bruno Decharme

“It was essential for me to create a corpus bringing together the major pieces in the collection. Many have no equivalent and can no longer be found. I wanted to make them inalienable, to protect them from the risks of dispersal resulting from the vagaries of time and family inheritance. To bring them to light by offering them to a prestigious museum. To enable the creation of a centre for outsider art that helps challenge the dogmas of our thinking and encourages us to approach art in a different way. Finally, to give these often-ostracised artists their rightful place alongside the big names. And more simply, to offer visitors the opportunity to discover or rediscover extraordinary, enigmatic works.” Bruno Decharme

Bruno Decharme, a collector and filmmaker, began his collection of outsider art (now comprising more than 6,000 works) in the late 1970s. He opened it up to the public in 1999 with the creation of the abcd (outsider art knowledge & distribution) association, whose mission was to develop research into outsider art based on the works in his collection and by promoting studies and publication, by exhibiting them in various places in France and abroad, in a monographic or thematic manner, and by producing films devoted to some of these artists.

Bruno Decharme wished to make an exceptional donation of nearly one thousand major works from his collection to a large French institution in order for a research centre to be developed within the institution to continue the work already started around outsider art, particularly with the help of Barbara Safarova, PhD in Literature and Aesthetics, president of the abcd association and director of the programme at the International College of Philosophy.

A permanent room has been dedicated to this donation since June 2021, the content of which rotates regularly in order to take considerations of conservation into account.

As part of Centre Pompidou | Constellation, an “Outsider Art” exhibition is being held from 6 June to 21 September 2025 in the Galeries Seine of the Grand Palais. Presenting masterpieces from the collection, the exhibition immerses visitors in the creative force of artists who have produced their work outside an established artistic culture.