Étranges Pulpes

Étranges Pulpes (Strange Pulps) is an invitation to travel. Fifty-eight drawings created between 2019 and 2025, site specific frescoes and twenty-three window decals take the visitor on an inner journey that transforms the space of the laundry, formerly the prison of the Chartreuse, into a gigantic anatomical architecture. Into this fantastic pop, psychedelic and colorful body, the viewer enters like Proteus, the miniaturized spaceship of Richard Fleischer’s Fantastic Voyage : a science-fiction film with a banal history and a breathtaking setting, which in 1969 transformed for the first time the body into a feast for the eyes, and a medical act into an adventurous inner odyssey.

Poisonous plants (Orsée pharmakon), mystical carnival compositions (Osraisons), animistic assemblages (Le(s) génie(s) naturel(s)), radioactive materials in transformation (Ni plat ni sphère : le Pied d’éléphant), apocalyptic visions (Ouf l’espèce est sauve, Entropia), legendary creatures (Ohlo Ehler Ahlav) : halfway between scientific drawings, anatomical plates and imaginary drifts bordering on science fiction, Jimmy Richer’s drawings redefine our understanding of the Chartreuse, making this architecture of redemption and physical contrition a place of healing and mental escape.

Throughout the journey, several short stories punctuate the time of the visit with literary adventures : a tribute to American pulps – those cheap fanzines collecting science fiction stories with mediocre histories which in the first half of the 20th century laid the foundations for a new way of seeing the world; otherwise, these stories inspired by miscellaneous events (cosmic animals, monsters from the abyss, criminal organ transplants…) also constitute an invitation to remain in the laundry room, to begin new journeys and extend the labyrinth of stories and images.

Born from an invitation in the form of a carte blanche, Étranges Pulpes constitutes the first event in a program of exhibitions made possible by the collaboration between three structures deeply rooted in the cultural dynamic of the Gard region: the National Centre for Performing Arts Writing La Chartreuse, the artist residency Échangeur ²² in Saint-Laurent des Arbres and the EPCC Pont du Gard.

Read the Viviana Birolli interview with Jimmy Richer, Marie-Cécile Conilh de Beyssac and Marianne Clévy about the Étranges Pulpes solo exhibition (text in French).