Allen S. Weiss - Figure Against Form: The Dolls Of Michel Nedjar

Monster or marvel, totem or fetish, icon or idol, every doll created by French artist Michel Nedjar is a memento mori, a lamentation. These dolls both wound and protect. They indicate those terrors, inexorable and insidious, that exist not only in the world, but also within ourselves. Each doll he creates emerges from a triple context: the accumulated doll collection in his atelier, the history of Art Brut with which he is affiliated, and the agglomeration of his own ‘poupées’, created in many styles over a period of decades. As author Allen S. Weiss writes in his expansive analysis, “The question remains, ‘What is a doll?’ And more specifically, ‘Are Nedjar’s creations even dolls?’”