Musée d'art naïf and culture

This chapter presents a selection of musings by French artist Ben Vautier (known as Ben), extracted from his newsletters before his passing. The text is organized into two main sections: “Musée d’Art Naïf” and “Culture.” The first section contains various unconventional proposals for the Museum of Naïve Art, including peculiar exhibitions, film screenings, musical performances, poetry readings and even exhibiting extraterrestrials. The “Culture” section gathers Ben’s critical reflections on contemporary art and culture. He suggests creating a group called “the incomprehensible implausible,” establishing a museum for discarded objects transformed into art, and proposes provocative art concepts like creating a taxidermy of contemporary artists. Ben also criticizes the commercialization of art, questioning the arbitrary valuation of artworks and commenting on how art has lost its world-changing potential. The chapter preserves Ben’s original French text alongside English translations provided by the editors.