Company · Artists and Writers

Christian Berst Art Brut

The Christian Berst Art Brut Gallery is internationally recognized as a leading figure in its field. Active for 20 years, it has organized close to 150 exhibitions, with as many bilingual publications. The art world’s growing interest in Art Brut is illustrated by the fact that, over the past three years, more than fifty of the gallery’s artists have entered the collections of the Musée National d’Art Moderne (Centre Pompidou), MoMA, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. In addition, since 2020, the gallery has made some 700 loans to some of the world’s leading museum institutions – Albertina Museum, The Barbican Center, Museo Reina Sofía, MMK Frankfurt, Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, Lafayette Anticipations, Palais de Tokyo, Center Pompidou Metz, MAMC-Musée d’art moderne et contemporain, Centre d’Art Contemporain, American Folk Art Museum, Fondation Prada - as well as the Athens, Shanghai and Berlin International Art Biennials, and the 2013 and 2017 Venice Biennials. In 2024, the same Venice Biennale will make the “brut artist” a “main axis”, as its curator Adriano Pedrosa points out. The Centre Pompidou, which opened an Art Brut room in its permanent collections in 2022, plans to explore this field of art with a major exhibition at the Grand Palais in 2025. By then, the gallery will have consolidated its contribution to the theoretical emulation that now drives art brut, as highlighted by the documentary La folie art brut, co-produced by the Centre Pompidou and broadcast by Arte in 2023. Among its major actions: a reinforced presence at major international fairs, including Art Basel Paris, Paris Photo, artgenève, ARCOmadrid, ArtParis and the Independent Art Fair. In 2020, the gallery opened a second space - the bridge - where guest curators express their vision of a fruitful dialogue between art brut and other categories of art. In 2025, the gallery celebrates his 20th anniversary.