Basel Social Club

The Gallery of Everything presents a solo display of original medals, currencies and pages by Emile Josome Hodinos (1853 - 1905).

Born Joseph Ernest Ménétrier in Paris in 1853, Emile Josome Hodinos trained as an engraver under the acclaimed French medallist Paulin Tasset. Yet it was his internment in the Ville-Évrard hospital at the age of 23 which enabled him to fulfil his substantial creative vision.

Using the hospital as his studio, the young would-be moneyer adopted a pseudonym and commenced his lifetime opus: a series of intricate medals and coins, along with scenes from Roman daily life and culture, etched onto scraps of found paper and food wrappers, and featuring allegorical female figures and cryptic mottos in a decorative imaginary republic.

In this, his secret world, the artist functioned as both as emperor and civilian. Blending the discipline of engraving, with compulsive repetition brought on by a reported mania, Hodinos produced hundreds of drawings - many of them lost to time, but some remarkably saved.

Hodinos was first presented to the world in Fantastic Art, Dada, Surrealism at the Museum of Modern Art, curated by Alfred Barr in 1936. He was then incorporated into La Collection de l’Art Brut by artist Jean Dubuffet and subsequently profiled in a publication (Fascicule 18).

For the installation at Basel Social Club, a selection of Hodinos’ artworks has been curated into a bespoke installation by The Gallery of Everything. This vast assembly of medals and currencies features over 100 extracted works, placed in formation around the walls of the former bank, in the spirit of a collaboration with their author. Alongside these are presented a small selection of figurative pieces, and some rare complete blue book pages.

The totality of artworks invites visitors to approach these objects not as relics, but as a proposition: for the preservation and activation of the original material, honouring Hodinos’ once-forgotten universe, while extending his astonishing coinage toward new readings, new authors and new states of mind.

All works on paper are available for purchase, individually or as an installation. Prices start at 650 euros for individual medals, from 1.000 to 5.000 euros for groups of medals, and from 6.000 to 20.000 euros for larger and figurative pieces. For details and sales, please contact the gallery at ge@gallevery.com.