“Enormously strange”are the words chosen by the artist Wim Delvoye to describe the incredible collection gathered by Jean Chatelus (1939–2021) in his Parisian apartments from the late 1960s onwards. From the bedroom to the garage, this book takes us into his modern-day cabinet of curiosities, as precise and demanding as it is disturbing and thought-provoking. The collection includes the work of numerous artists such as Cindy Sherman, Jake & Dinos Chapman, Mike Kelley, Yayoi Kusama, Christian Boltanski, and Gina Pane, alongside Komo masks and religious knick-knacks. The collection encompasses over 600 artworks and documents sculptures, installations, paintings, photographs, drawings, votive and vernacular objects all testifying to the collector’s obsession: the tormented body, the poetics of ruins, death, the organic and its decomposition, the looming threat of apocalypse, the forbidden, the religious and its blasphemy. Enriched with detailed entries on the pieces, critical essays, and personal accounts, this book documents the collection and pays tribute to its creator’s unwavering dedication.

This catalog was published on the occasion of the bequest of the Jean Chatelus collection to the Fondation Antoine de Galbert, followed by its donation to the Musée national d’art moderne – Centre Pompidou.