From the collections:
Collectie De Stadshof Foundation and the Dr. Guislain Museum

Art is an essential part of life. It touches us, stimulates our imagination and makes us reflect about mankind and society. Because of its virtuosity and expressiveness, art can be shamelessly beautiful and evoke a sense of awe.

Contemporary museums exhibit work by professional artists. Few museums focus on collecting and exhibiting work from original talents, people who did not get the opportunity to study art or who are not part of the regular art circuit for one reason or another. They are usually artistic loners, nonconformists, who make unorthodox choices in terms of the materials and techniques they use. Their motifs are often personal. Their works are intense and unique.

The Cabinets provides a platform for ‘solitary creators’ whose work will be arranged in changing presentations: recent acquisitions are exhibited, vulnerable works are returned to the depot and new themes are addressed.

The Cabinets is a collaboration between the Collectie De Stadshof Foundation and the Dr. Guislain Museum. It presents works of some thirty different artists.

The Museum Dr. Guislain’s collection started off with a small collection of visual art created by artistically-gifted psychiatric patients and mentally challenged persons. In 2002, the collection in Ghent expanded tremendously with the internationally acclaimed collection of De Stadshof Collection Foundation, which is on long term loan. This top-of-the-bill collection – from naïve art to art brut – has more than 6,000 pieces by nearly 400 outsider artists such as A.C.M., Herman Bossert, Nek Chand, Paul Duhem, Luiz Figueiredo, Madge Gill, Siebe Wiemer Glastra, Bertus Jonkers, Pavel Leonov, Bonaria Manca, Markus Meurer, Michel Nedjar, Oswald Tschirtner, Willem van Genk, and August Walla.