Les Abattoirs presents Art, exile and psychiatry around François Tosquelles and The Lady and the Unicorn

This unprecedented exhibition reveals a little-known story that made a special contribution to 20th-century psychiatry, lending it new connections to art brut and modern art. As its starting point, it takes the life of Catalan psychiatrist François Tosquelles (1912–1994). It traces paths of exile, both of the Spanish Retirada and the Second World War, describing the role this doctor played among the patients in the Saint-Alban-sur-Limagnole psychiatric hospital. After fleeing along with 500,000 Spanish refugees after three years of war and after spending time in the Septfonds internment camp, he moved to Saint-Alban-sur-Limagnole in 1940. In this hospital, he developed new methods of treatment based on the group and on artistic work and creation by patients whose artworks would later be collected by Jean Dubuffet as art brut. During this period, the hospital of François Tosquelles and Lucien Bonnafé received exiled artists and writers, as the Surrealist Nusch and Paul Éluard, who were struck by the place and its inhabitants. After the war, the foundation of a disalienating psychiatry, known as community psychiatry began to be laid through group activities such as cinema, clubs and magazines. Avant-garde psychiatrists worked at the hospital, such as Frantz Fanon, the philosopher on decolonization. Les Abattoirs is hosting the first stage of this international project, bringing together more than 100 artworks, including art created by the hospital patients as well as films, books, archives, photographs, and a section devoted to contemporary art. In 2022 this exhibition will tour to the CCCB in Barcelona and the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid, and in 2023 to the American Folk Art Museum in New York.

Artists and authors: Karel Appel, Benjamin Arneval, Antonin Artaud, Paul Balvet, Raphaël Barontini, Georges Bataille, Roger Bernat, Albert Belloc, Jeanne Bonnafé, Lucien Bonnafé, Mohamed Bourouissa, Brassaï, Georges Canguilhem, Giuseppe Capone, Georgette Chadourne, Jean Combier, Auguste Chauvin, Frédéric Delanglade, Fernand Deligny, Eugène Deslaw, Jean Dubuffet, Maxime Dubuisson, Eric Duvivier, Paul Eluard, Frantz Fanon, Jean Fautrier, Gaston Ferdière, Celestino Ferrando Marti, Auguste Forestier, Michel Foucault, Luis Garcia Gallo, Joséphine Guattari, Aimable Jayet, Allan King, Yayoi Kusama, Maurizio Lazzarato, Léon Marguerit, Agnes Martin, Agnès Masson, Jacques Matarasso, Angela Melitopoulos, Jean-Baptiste Metge, Henri Michaux, Myriam Mihindou, Margaret Miller, Joan Miró, Roméo Mivekannin, François Pain, Alejandro Parriego, Jean Paulhan, Perejaume, Josep Ponti Musté, Hans Prinzhorn, Marcel Réja, Alejandra Riera, José Roa, Mario Ruspoli, Enrique Sales, Salvadore Sales, Francisco Saura, Léon Schwarz-Abrys, Marguerite Sirvins, Nancy Spero, François Tosquelles, Hélène Tosquelles, Tristan Tzara, Romain Vigouroux, Gérard Vulliamy

Curators: Carles Guerra, Joana Masó, Julien Michel, Annabelle Ténèze

The Lady and the Unicorn: Medieval and so Contemporary
October 30, 2021–January 16, 2022

The Lady and the Unicorn, the masterpiece of the Musée de Cluny, travels to Toulouse as part of an exceptional loan to Les Abattoirs. The presentation of the tapestries from the 1500s is accompanied by a series of works by contemporary artists. Each of them offers a reflection on the current state of the Middle Ages and its heritage, as well as on the mythical figure of the unicorn. Each contemporary proposal is an open door to a different issue: the importance of representation and the feminine and feminist affirmation that is part of the unicorn, the collective dimension of art and handicraft, the relationship with nature, sometimes approached from the angle of the marvellous, but also confronted with current ecological issues. The cultural programme sheds light on the importance of the Middle Ages in contemporary history, that of an “emancipating Middle Ages,” far from the expected clichés.

Artists: Will Cotton, Maïder Fortuné, Rebecca Horn, Suzanne Husky, Agathe Pitié, Southway Studio (Jean-Marie Appriou + Jenna Käes + Bella Hunt & DDC + Emmanuelle Luciani)
Cultural program: Clovis Maillet and Thomas Golsenne
Curators: Béatrice de Chancel-Bardelot, Séverine Lepape, Annabelle Ténèze

With the exceptional support of le Musée de Cluny – musée national du Moyen Âge.