Jean Dubuffet
I don’t know much about French artist Jean Dubuffet, but what I’ve seen so far, I like. For one thing, he appears to have been a player of the nose flute.
For another, he apparently said this.”For me, insanity is super sanity. The normal is psychotic.”
His work is described as low art and he founded a movement called Art Brut (also known as ‘outsider art’). He worked in oil paint thickened with bitumen to give a textured finish. If any artists are reading this, you have my apologies if I’m butchering the description of how one paints here and what bitumen is.
Dubuffet (great name) died in 1985 when he was 83, but his ethos (and some of his paintings) was presented in this piece from Helly Nahmad at Frieze Masters last October, apparently referencing his visits to asylums and sanatoriums for inspiration.
In 1973 he presented an animated painting called Coucou Bazar, using dancers and actors, in the Guggenheim, New York. I’d have liked to have seen that.
Here’s a room by the artist at the Centre Pompidou – I think it’s on permanent display there, but the Dubuffet Foundation website is a bit ambiguous.
His painting, Memoration.
I also like this one, Site habits d’objects.
And this one, a self portrait.
Finally, his huge Four Trees sculpture was commissioned by banker David Rockefeller to sit outside the Chase Manhattan bank, in Manhattan (of which he was chairman). I think it’s still there, but the courtyard it’s in is no longer accessible to the public according to some angry bloggers.
All of which is a bit random this wednesday, but I was digging that quote.
Witht his post, you brought me back 30 years. Will never forget Dubuffet’s sculpture Le boqueteau in The French Alps (Flaine) on our yearly ski trip with my family. Casually placed at the bottom of the slopes, great meeting point. Art at its best: in use.
Oh I think I saw this on my image searching travels, it looks amazing and lucky you seeing it first hand.
Love that quote too and will remember it when I’m next feeling a little bit odd and insane and realise that it’s not me at all that I should be worried about but everyone else !