Brutal Beauty
Mon 17 May—Sun 22 Aug 2021
Barbican Centre
Silk St
London
EC2Y 8DS
An exhibition of the art of French artist Jean Dubuffet (1901-1985) with more than 150 of his works from four decades, including portraits, lithographs, enamel paintings and giant canvases - plus works from his collection of Art Brut.
Art brut, or Raw Art, also known as Outsider Art relates to art work created by the untrained, the amateur and the mentally ill. Works that shaped his approach to the making and meaning of art. Dubuffet believed their work revealed more about the creativity and the unconscious than art based in either classicism or modernism. In his bid for authenticity Dubuffet’s approach to work was influenced by this, and that these art makers were often using limited means and the poorest materials led him to experiment with tools and materials not normally associated with art works. (glass, coal dust, pebbles, string and gravel)
Debuffet- him say -
‘Art should always make you laugh a little and fear a little. Anything but bore’.
“I have a great interest in madness, and I am convinced art has much to do with madness,”
“Those works created from solitude, from pure and authentic creative impulses, where the worries of competition, acclaim and social promotion do not interfere are, because of these very facts, more precious than the productions of professionals.”
“The real function of art is to change mental patterns, making new thought possible.”
https://www.barbican.org.uk/whats-on/2021/event/jean-dubuffet-brutal-beauty
Images in descending order
Dancers with diamonds; - Caught in the act - Clowns point - Crystallisation of the dream - Garden with melitaea - restaurant rougeot - telephone torment - vicissitudes - Skedaddle
all copyrights acknowledged.