THEN STABLES

Born in 1913, Vallenay, France. Died in 1978, Asnieres-les-Bourges, France.

The material in the photographs of Marcel Bascoulard (1913-1978) is made up of dissociated elements: fictional elements, facts of desires, active elements made up of scenes. Immobile, complex, the formalelements fold together to create a story unlike any other. The perpetual shift between Bascoulard's face and body in the small photographic prints brings us face to face with a voluntary, astonishing, intense and acute experience. It's as if her body crosses a threshold by becoming a woman (...). 

This disturbance of identity gives him the need to invent himself, and places him in the category of art brut. Although his drawings of the city, maps and locomotives, which he fetishises, are very orderly and precise, they are devoid of characters. The only character that exists is relayed from the photographic side intransvestite self-portraits. He found himself beautiful as a woman. He designs the patterns for his dresses, has his own seamstresses to make them and a photographer who lends him cameras also photographs him incalculated poses in rubble. 

These are not stolen snapshots. The pauses are reflected; in unhealthy places, alleyways, backyards and exchanged for drawings. He stares into the camera. His gaze is direct. His gestures echo feminine codes: how she carries a handbag (...). He is often photographed with a broken mirror between his fingers. The ruins, the remains of a fetishised specular in his hand (...)

There have been countless exhibitions devoted to this "magnificent tramp" since the discovery of his disturbing photographs forty years after his death. In 2018, his works were shown alongside those of Cindy Sherman in the Dancing With Myself exhibition organised by the Pinault Foundation in Venice at La Punta della Dogana, in 2019 at the Musée de Grenoble during the presentation of the Antoine de Galbert Collection, in Arles during the Photo Brut exhibition and again in 2020 at the CAC Brétigny. In 2021, the Folk Art Museum in New York will pay tribute to him in the United States by showing a collection of his photographs, and at the end of January, the Kunsthalle in Bregenz, Austria, will devote a solo exhibition to him.