Jean Dubuffet (1901–1985) is one of the most unconventional artists of the second half of the 20th century. He left an academie of art in Paris as a disappointed student, because he didn’t like its methodology and classical approach. He started a successful career in the wine trade instead, following in the footsteps of his father. In 1942, at the age of 41, he started his career as artist however. He was multitalented, in music, painting, literature and languages. He succeeded in liberating himself from traditions.
In 1948 he founded the “Compagnie de l’Art Brut” (die “rohe Kunst”) which advocated working artistically outside the bounds of familiar aesthetic norms and academic training. In 1962 he developed a semi-figurative, semi-abstract artistic idiom in a large series of works he called Hourloupe. In his later work Dubuffet returned to the gestural techniques of Art Informel. The pictures he painted or scratched into surfaces of polyester resin were also inspired by the materials he used – both artificial and natural materials such as plaster, sand, glue or putty, which he applied with a palette knife, kneaded, scratched and covered with scribbles.
The Fondation presents the artist’s oeuvre on the basis of more than 100 works, starting from Dubuffet’s idea of landscape. he experimented with new techniques and materials and thereby created a wholly individual and unique visual universe.
Alongside paintings and sculptures, the exhibition is also showing Dubuffet’s spectacular Coucou Bazar, a multimedia work of art combining painting, sculpture, theatre, dance and music.