This piece from the early 1980s symbolizes a major turning point in A.C.M.'s career: the artist “verticalizes” his assemblages, which are now arranged vertically, giving them an almost architectural dimension.

The work consists of a series of sculpted pieces of chalk, methodically fixed to strips of old parquet flooring, all framed in wood. The choice of materials is central. Chalk, a fragile and ephemeral school material, is diverted from its function here to become a sculptural element. Each piece is carved, worked and bound with wire, then fixed vertically to the support.

The whole is organized in regular rows, evoking a rigorous classification system. This organization echoes the scientific rigor of an entomologist: the pieces of chalk become unique “specimens,” bearing the traces of the artist's hand, time, and wear. This presentation system invites careful, analytical viewing. The play of illusion and diversion is central: chalk, a traditional medium for writing or drawing, becomes an object of contemplation.

Parquet flooring, a material associated with the ground, is erected vertically, reversing its primary function. This reversal of uses places the piece within a logic of diversion, where ordinary materials are reinvested with a plastic and symbolic charge. Verticalization proves to be fundamental here: it transforms the object into a “painting-sculpture.” It also brings the work closer to the viewer's gaze, inviting them to scrutinize it like a museum display case or an entomologist's board, reinforcing the notions of collection, memory, and inventory.

This work marks a transition between assemblages of organic matter and the visual language that the artist would develop from the 1990s onwards, when he began to favor recycled materials from industry and technology.

It is structured like a bas-relief or a layered landscape: layers of materials accumulate, overlap, and intersect, composing an image that is both chaotic and meticulously orchestrated.

There is a constant tension between the precision of the gesture and the desire to alter, disorganize, and allow the material to degrade. The work functions as a mental architecture or a fragment of a ruined universe, inviting the viewer to read the traces, scars, and strata of a material memory.

This work from the 2000s, a sprawling vertical structure, evokes a fantastical cathedral, an organic machine, and a labyrinth populated by enigmatic figures.

It consists of a meticulous assembly of repurposed parts: gears, fragments of typewriters, electronic components, wires, and shards of mirror. A multitude of stylized characters and animals can be seen, inserted into the structure or perched on its protuberances.

The verticality of the piece reinforces its monumental aspect and invites the viewer to explore it with their eyes, like a miniature city or a machine that is impossible to decipher in its entirety. The surface is deliberately oxidized, worn, and sometimes corroded, reflecting a process of transformation and erosion controlled by the artist.

Bright colors punctuate certain details, accentuating the narrative dimension of the whole and reinforcing the impression of a world in tension, both poetic and threatening.

This work stands out for its miniature monumentality and remarkable architectural density. It is constructed from a complex assemblage of recycled materials: fragments of typewriters, gears, electronic circuits, wires, and metal elements deliberately oxidized by the artist. Stylized characters and fantastical animals are integrated into the structure, like totemic figures or enigmatic presences.

The composition is organized into a bustling vertical city, where modules, towers, and walkways seem both autonomous and organically connected to the whole. The scratched, dusty appearance and rusty patina reveal a meticulous process of transformation and alteration of the material, faithful to the aesthetics of A.C.M., where apparent fragility coexists with mechanical complexity and the memory of objects.

This work, created around 1998, resembles a mechanical structure, halfway between a technological tower, an organic machine, and a miniature city.

It consists of a meticulous assembly of typewriter parts: small industrial components and cogwheels, repurposed from their original function. Within this network of rods, plates, and gears, silhouettes, observation posts, and fragile walkways appear, suggesting the presence of invisible characters or mechanisms.

The sculpture's assertive verticality, structured by a central axis around which protuberances proliferate, gives it an almost monumental dimension. The work eludes immediate interpretation: the viewer's gaze is invited to move from bottom to top, exploring its nooks and crannies, like a mechanical labyrinth whose logic remains deliberately enigmatic.

The dark surface evokes the memory of obsolete technology undergoing transformation. The contrasts between matte metal, polished areas, and greased elements produce unstable reflections, giving the impression that the structure could start moving at any moment.

In places, discreet touches of brass and colored copper punctuate the whole, like signals, eyes, or indicator lights, activating an underlying narrative dimension.

This work, created around 2020, is presented as a relief painting halfway between an abstract circuit, an architectural facade, and mental cartography.

The painted wooden panel contained within the painting is entirely covered with sections of electrical cables and small mechanical parts, arranged in tight geometric patterns: concentric circles, triangles, diagonals, and networks of dots that echo across the entire surface. This methodical repetition produces a hypnotic pattern, evoking a diagram of interdependent connections.

At regular intervals, fragments of mirror are inserted into the composition like openings or screens. These reflective surfaces capture and fragment the light, integrating the audience and the space into the work, while introducing an unstable depth that breaks the frontality of the painting.

The contrast between the light background and the dark, compact material of the sawn cables gives the whole a strong graphic presence, bordering on drawing and sculpture. However, the rigor of the composition is punctuated by slight irregularities, which disrupt its reading and maintain a constant visual tension.

Created around 2020, this relief painting combines electrical materials, mirror fragments, and acrylic paint to form a colorful and rigorously constructed surface.

Against a white background, a field of colored triangles and discs encrusted with mirrors unfolds, surrounded by colored beads around which a cloud of mechanical parts interacts. The mirrors appear sporadically in the composition, introducing unstable flashes of light that interact with the chromatic diversity. The reflections activate the surface and establish direct correspondences between the audience's space and this mechanical microcosm.

The beads form fine crowns of dots that reinforce the idea of vibration, sparkle, or energy field. The repetition of this protocol and the proliferation of forms establish a sustained rhythm.

In line with the artist's work assembling electrical materials, this piece affirms color as its main vector.

The painting presents itself as an artificial celestial map, an expanding space where the forms seem charged with an energy that is at once playful, poetic, and deliberately ambiguous.

This untitled work, created around 2020, is a large-format relief painting composed entirely of sections of electrical cables and mirror fragments. These materials form a dense, layered surface, where organic and industrial registers intersect.

Large white shapes, reminiscent of leaves or vines, spread across the entire surface in a continuous tangle, comparable to a superimposed network of vegetation. The mirror fragments reveal a fragmented background, consisting of colorful reflections and fragments of the surrounding space, recomposed as the audience moves around.

The surface then acts as an unstable plane, integrating light, ambient colors, and the presence of the audience into the very heart of the composition.

The contrast between the opaque density of the white shapes and the reflective depth of the mirrors generates a constant visual vibration. The work oscillates between opacity and transparency, between drawing and light, as if abstract vegetation were gradually covering a glass surface. The methodical repetition of cable sections evokes a patient work transforming industrial material into a lace-like structure.

Continuing his research on electrical materials and mirrors, the artist creates an inverted landscape, where organic forms appear as a field of floating perceptions.

No. 724 in the catalog raisonné

Inscription on the reverse: “Mrs. Kennedy in Paul VI's coat”

Part of the Japanese paper group

A couple occupies most of the drawing, seated atop a purple and brown horse, flattened at the bottom edge of the sheet. The man wears a red hood trimmed with ermine, suggesting that he may be the Good Child. His long black leg extends down to the horse in the lower left quarter. The woman wears a white dress trimmed with ermine, surrounded by a blue and ermine coat.

Like all of Aloïse's drawings on black Japanese paper, this one contains particularly fantastical forms that contrast sharply with the peaceful nature of the other drawings from this fifth period. The horse, the man's leg, and his ambiguous essence between Bon Enfant and Paul VI are characteristic of the drawings on Japanese paper from 1962, as are their acrobatic composition, enigmatic forms, and splendid colors.

Texts by Jacqueline Porret-Forel, who met Aloïse in 1941. In 1953, she devoted her medical thesis to her, Aloyse ou la peinture magique d'une schizophrène (Aloïse or the magical painting of a schizophrenic), and subsequently two other works, Aloïse et son théâtre (Aloïse and her theater) in 1955 and Aloïse et le théâtre de l'Univers (Aloïse and the theater of the Universe), published in 1993 by Skira.

Signed and dated “12.1939 No. 50” lower right

Foyer de l’Art Brut

Former André Breton Collection

In this sculpture by Stefan Holzmüller, the fully glazed terracotta diffuses a warm, satiny light that highlights the vitality of the modeling. The work unfolds on two levels: a dense, organic base populated by human figures mingling with miniature architecture, topped by a large circular plateau—a sort of acropolis—crowned with small houses inhabited by other characters.

The play of scale between the figures and the dwellings creates an expressive tension: some characters appear too large for the houses, while others seem to be part of them, as if absorbed by the architecture. The whole composition forms a living city, animated from within. The palette, dominated by browns, ochres, and pinkish beiges, is enhanced by varnish and punctuated with a few touches of sea green or dark brown that accentuate the reliefs. The slender circular shape is reminiscent of a Mediterranean citadel, a suspended Cycladic village, reflecting the artist's attachment to ancient Greece.

Double-sided artwork : handwritten notes on the back

Signed lower right

Signed lower right

Former Andreoli Collection

This double-sided diptych by Carlo Zinelli, created using gouache and graphite, is composed as a tribute to his caregivers at the psychiatric hospital where he stayed until the end of his life. On the first side, a large, massive, cut-out red silhouette stands in front of a cross, surrounded by a cloud of repetitive inscriptions.

This character is the “fractured Carlo”: a figure representing the artist himself, fragmented by his experience in the hospital, both present and absent, a totemic silhouette that embodies vulnerability and resistance. The space is saturated with words written in pencil, among which the first name “Mario” appears tirelessly: this is Mario, the devoted nurse who accompanied Carlo on a daily basis. This name, repeated like a litany, weaves a bond of recognition and gratitude, while emphasizing the importance of human relationships in the closed world of the asylum.

On the back, the composition is organized around a large red hat adorned with a white star, placed above the word “Rama” written in large letters. “Rama” was an affectionate joke by his psychiatrist, a nickname that means “little branch” in Italian, reflecting the complicity and humor shared between the patient and the medical team. Around the hat, colorful touches and handwritten inscriptions mix fragments of words, sounds, and onomatopoeia.

This double-sided work by Carlo Zinelli unfolds a universe of great intensity, faithful to the spirit of the artist. On each side, two large stylized silhouettes, one blue, the other red, face each other or respond to each other, crossed by circular patterns and openings, like human archetypes or totemic figures. Around them, a constellation of objects, animals, houses, and signs is organized in a space without perspective, in which the narrative is constructed through repetition and variation in scale. The composition is punctuated by handwriting that dominates the surface, mixing words, fragments of sentences, and onomatopoeia.

Far from being purely informative, this writing becomes a plastic element in its own right, reinforcing the sound and interior dimension of the work. The palette, dominated by deep blue, carmine red, and a few touches of yellow, structures a whole in which we find echoes of Zinelli's rural memories, his recollections of the countryside, but also traces of his experience of war and psychiatric asylum: animals and enigmatic forms, houses, objects.

One unusual detail catches the eye: inside a circle, a cigarette burn made by the artist himself pierces the surface. This gesture, both spontaneous and meaningful, introduces a tactile and almost ritualistic dimension to the work, like a signature or a mark of time that runs through the narrative.

Former Andreoli Collection

This work by Carlo Zinelli, created around 1960, depicts four large black silhouettes seated in profile, each on a chair, forming a symmetrical, frontal composition. Each of these figures wears an oval medallion on their head, inside which appears a black bird, a recurring motif in Zinelli's work.

The space is saturated with repetitive black motifs, evoking crowds, trees, or abstract signs, while a vertical frieze of small red figures animates the right border.

The absence of perspective, the proliferation of signs, and the variation in scale create a ritualistic and hypnotic atmosphere typical of the artist's early work.

A young artist of French-Thai origin, Vanessa Garner develops work rooted in the exploration of cultural mixing, memory, and identity. She uses natural materials—wood, batik fabrics, wool, lavender—which she assembles into installations, totemic objects, and textile sculptures.

Designed to be touched and handled, her work questions the distance between art and the public and paves the way for immersive and participatory experiences. The verticality, the shape of the stick, and the use of natural materials give her work a universal dimension, associated with notions of guidance, the connection between heaven and earth, and purification. Thai fabrics, Indonesian batik, and Provençal lavender thus become the vectors of a narrative that is both intimate and collective, building bridges between cultures and generations.

Vanessa Garner's work has been presented in numerous solo and group exhibitions in Strasbourg, Paris, Lille, Zurich, and Lausanne. She is a laureate of the Laurent-Vuibert Foundation. Her work will be presented in Venice during the 2026 edition of the Biennale as part of the Personal Structures exhibition at the Palazzo Mora.