Les rêves hallucinés de Brion Gysin au musée d’Art moderne de Paris
The Musée d'Art Moderne de Paris (MAM) has opened a major retrospective dedicated to Brion Gysin, the British-born artist, poet, and musician best known for inventing the Dreamachine in the late 1950s. The exhibition, curated by Olivier Weil and chief heritage curator Hélène Leroy, explores Gysin's跨界 career across surrealism, the Beat Generation, and experimental film, featuring over 400 works and archives that he bequeathed to the City of Paris before his death in 1986.
The exhibition matters because it rescues Gysin from being reduced to a cult figure associated with the Dreamachine, revealing his broader influence as a 'shamanic passer' between avant-garde movements and generations. By highlighting his collaborations with figures like William S. Burroughs and his engagement with altered states of consciousness, the show underscores Gysin's enduring relevance for contemporary artists and his unique position as a missing link between surrealism and the counterculture of the 1960s.