Galerie Légitime (Robert Filliou's hat)

( Galerie Légitime, ca 1962-1963 / Galerie Légitime, serigraph, Galery Wilbrand, Cologne, 1969 / Galerie Légitime, ed. Hansjorg Mayer, Stuttgart, 1969 (exhibition poster that folds into a paper hat) / The Frozen Exhibition, ed. VICE-Versand, Remscheid, 1972 / still from 1977 video Porta Filliou/ Filliou c. 1964)

Inside my cap, on top of my head, I had small works of mine---at that time I used to make things where I used measurements, or I mummified them. Then in the streets of Paris I would walk through the streets, and I would come up to someone and a typical dialogue might be: "Are you interested in art, monsieur or madame?" and if they said, "Yes, yes," I would say: "Well you know I have a gallery." And if they expressed some interest I would say: "Here it is." There inside my hat were the works. They were perhaps a little bigger than this grape. And then we would look at the works.
So with the Galerie Légitime I could go through the streets, I could go also inside houses and other buildings, and many things happened to the Galerie Légitime. For instance, when I was in Germany with another version I lost it, so I went around Frankfurt looking for my gallery. At another time my gallery was stolen.

-Robert Filliou (transcribed from Porta Filliou, video, 1977)

from Robert Filliou: From Political To Poetical Economy, Morris and Helen Belkin Gallery, Univeristy of British Columbia, 1994

Robert Filliou: Editions and Multiples, les presses du reel, Dijon, 2003

Fluxus, Thomas Kellein, Thames and Hudson, London, 1995

previously here and here