Curator: Martina Mazzotta, Frédéric Jaeger
On display are 140 works among paintings, drawings, artworks, sculptures, art books, musical, poetical and theatrical writings mainly coming from Fondation Dubuffet and Paris-based Musée des Arts Décoratif, as well as from museums and private collections of France, Switzerland, Austria and Italy, in addition to 30 works of historic protagonists of art brut, in cooperation with Giorgio Bedoni.
There are three main sections, based on the dialectics between the two notions of material and spirit.
The first section, 1945-1960, presents the cycles around the material, from Mirobolus, Macadam et Cie to Matériologies; the second section dates back to the years 1962-1974, with the works of L’Hourloupe collection, created from a drawing made mechanically on the phone, that will have turned into a monumental sculpture 12 years later.
The third section explores the new horizon of intense chromatism, that developed through the Théâtres de mémoire and the Non-lieux from 1976 to 1984.
The exhibition also includes a section dedicated to the art brut, term coined in 1945 by Dubuffet himself who created the first world collection defined by this name.