Issue #137 | Art and Societies

# 137 | Thomas Schlesser and Anne Picq | Art and disability

The Art of Limits

In Un coup de hache dans la tête (2022), Professor Raphaël Gaillard demonstrates how psychological suffering does not fuel creation, even if, working through the gaps in their pain, it does not prevent some artists from creating major works. Following a similar approach—one that avoids romanticism while still acknowledging the unprecedented experiences born of constraint—Anne Picq and Thomas Schlesser present the proceedings of a symposium where physical disability is no longer an unspoken aspect of art history. Instead, it is examined as a decisive element of the creative process, a privileged lens through which to understand artists and the strenght derived from their limitations. They remind us that these issues are essential to our discipline, shaped as it is by a concern for beings and how they are represented.

Laurence Bertrand Dorléac and Thibault Boulvain

Thomas Schlesser is the Director of the Hartung-Bergman Foundation and a professor at École Polytechnique. A specialist in Gustave Courbet, to whom he has devoted numerous works, he is also the author of several essays and biographies, including L’Art face à la censure (Beaux-Arts éditions, 2011, reissued 2019), L’Univers sans l’homme – les arts contre l’anthropocentrisme (Hazan, 2016), Faire rêver – du rêve des Lumières au cauchemar publicitaire (Gallimard, 2019), and Anna-Eva Bergman – Vies lumineuses (Gallimard, 2022). He is also a documentary filmmaker and exhibition curator. His second novel, Les Yeux de Mona, earned him the “Author of the Year” award in 2025.

Anne Picq works at the intersection of art, education, and social innovation. She was deputy editor-in-chief of Beaux-Arts Magazine and then Head of Audiences at the Musée du Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac in Paris. She now teaches at the university and in continuing education, and as an independent professional, she develops projects aimed at making art accessible to new audiences. With Thomas Schlesser, she co-directed the international conference Art and Disabilities (December 3–4, 2025) and is leading the research program conducted in 2026–2027 by the Hartung-Bergman Foundation on this theme. She co-authored New York, au cœur de la création contemporaine (Les Ateliers Henry Dougier, 2022) with Aude Adrien.