La Maison Rouge, an art foundation in Paris dedicated to exhibiting private collections and marginal and outsider art, has announced it will close its doors in 2018.

The 2000-square-meter space, which was launched in 2004 by the art collector Antoine de Galbert at 10 Boulevard de la Bastille, in the 12th arrondissement, soon became an important hub in the Parisian art scene, which is why news of its closure came as a surprise to many.

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“I am neither sick nor financially ruined. This is obviously what people will be saying, but no, neither my physical health nor my financial health are threatened. Everything is fine,” de Galbert told Le Monde yesterday.

“I think I can say that it takes courage to get involved in a venture like this. And I believe that courage is also needed to put an end to it.”

When asked why he had decided to close the space now, de Galbert explained, “Because I can’t see how we could do any better or go any further. When I created La Maison Rouge, I knew that it would end one day. It seems preferable to me—if I may say so, even if lacking modesty—to quit while you’re ahead rather than risk closing down at a lower point.”

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Born in Grenoble in 1955, de Galbert is one of the heirs of the Carrefour group, where he worked for some time before opening a contemporary art gallery in his hometown in 1987.

He closed it in the early 2000s to focus on the launch of La Maison Rouge, located in an old factory refurbished by the architect Jean-Yves Clément and the artist Jean-Michel Alberola.

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Since 2004, the space has featured exhibitions by artists including Eugène Gabritschevsky (2016), the art brut collection of Bruno Decharme (2014), Henry Darger (2010), Mika Rottenberg (2009), and Tetsumi Kudo (2007).