The glass magic of Othoniel at the Palace of the postman Cheval
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“Postman Cheval must be turning in his grave!” His Ideal Palace is as important as Lascaux or the pyramids. » The collector Antoine de Galbert loves contemporary art, he amply proved it when he created the La Maison rouge foundation in Paris, but for him, the installation of Jean-Michel Othoniel in Hauterives (Drôme) is sacrilege.
At the invitation of Frédéric Legros, the site manager, Othoniel’s colored glass sculptures dialogue with Ferdinand Cheval’s Ideal Palace, which he has also fitted the windows with stained glass of his own design. Without forgetting a hanging of his preparatory drawings and installations in the adjacent space devoted to temporary exhibitions. Antoine de Galbert is not the only one to be shocked: most art brut lovers strongly condemn this intrusion into the temple.
Jean-Michel Othoniel defends himself from any parasitism by saying that he wanted to pursue a dream of the famous postman: when he had visitors (the entrance was already charged and, as a good postman, he sold them postcards!), on Sundays , he forced his maid, Julie Achard – she complained about it – to carry buckets to the top of the tallest tower in order to irrigate the fountains he had designed but where there was no running water.
A form of naivety
Othoniel also has a long history with this place: his parents, who lived in Saint-Etienne, where he was born in 1964, regularly came on vacation not far from there, his mother, a teacher, and him in the vanguard. Today he names the place “my mother’s palace”. Little Jean-Michel, from the age of 6, rubbed shoulders with art in this place, literally as the galleries designed by the postman Cheval are narrow. Unfortunately, we discovered the place much later than him, but it is easy to understand what such a place can provoke in the imagination of a child.
The artist defends himself from any parasitism by saying that he wanted to pursue a dream of the famous postman
He returned there in the 1980s with photographer and filmmaker Clovis Prévost (author of a short film entitled The Cheval factor: where the dream becomes reality), one of his teachers at the art school of Cergy-Pontoise, with whom he shot a film, orange sensation, in 1988, which is displayed in the showroom. There they met and interviewed many unique artists, supporters of art brut in short. That’s a long time before this movement becomes fashionable and finds its temple guardians. Of the artists of his generation, Othoniel is undoubtedly one of those who knows this milieu best. And if some perceive a form of naivety or freshness in his work, however sophisticated it may be, that is perhaps what it is due to.
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