Art Brut
Art Brut
Collection de l’Art Brut
After all the intensity of Art Basel I started questioning what other purposes art has. I know for myself the process of making work is why I love it. The commercial end of things was frankly a bit brutal on the psyche of someone who usually engages in the practice of creation or helping others find their personal voices. It is hard to wrap my brain around that experience being reduced to numbers and investments. It’s also amazing that SO many people in this world find themselves compelled to make art. I’m fairly certain that other than Jeff Koons none of these people began their artistic career thinking, “Now THIS is a way to make some money!” I started thinking about the purpose of art to the artist and whether it always has to be about surviving financially by your art.
As a high school art teacher I have to meet my students where they are and I hope to give them something they can take away from the experience. Whether they are interested in representing their ideas more clearly, seeing the world in a new way, or are just looking for a place to express themselves. All of these things matter. I’ve had the pleasure of working with students with varying disabilities and unique ways of perceiving the reality around them. I’m interested in how their experience shapes the art they make. The basic compulsion to create that is an undercurrent in all humanity is what drew me to Jean DuBuffet’s collection in Lausanne.
I was amazed at the work that I saw in this 4 story museum. The artwork told me over and over again that our inner worlds are complex and personal things. Each person whose work was on display created their work as a dialogue with themselves- we as viewers may not truly understand what was going on in their heads since they lack the formal language we use to describe artwork. They used materials that were available to them and constructed work that ranged from rudimentary skills to obsessively meticulous craft. All were prolific. I started seeing parallels in their work and some pieces I saw at Art Basel. The creation of coding systems the intricate maps, the repetitive nature of the work is common in Fine Art as well.
This from a description of DuBuffet’s work in the Tate Collection in England:
French term translating as 'raw art'. Term invented by the French artist Jean Dubuffet to describe art made outside the tradition of fine art, dominated by academic training, which he referred to as cultural art. Art Brut included graffiti, and the work of the insane, prisoners, children, and naïve or primitive artists. What Dubuffet valued in this material was the raw expression of a vision or emotions, untrammeled by convention. These qualities he attempted to incorporate into his own art, to which the term Art Brut is also sometimes applied. Dubuffet made a large collection of Art Brut, and in 1948 founded the Compagnie de l'Art Brut to promote its study. His collection is now housed in a museum, La Collection de l'Art Brut in the Swiss city of Lausanne.
Dubuffet characterized art brut as:
"Those works created from solitude and 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. After a certain familiarity with these flourishings of an exalted feverishness, lived so fully and so intensely by their authors, we cannot avoid the feeling that in relation to these works, cultural art in its entirety appears to be the game of a futile society, a fallacious parade." - Jean Dubuffet. Place à l'incivisme (Make way for Incivism). Art and Text no.27 (December 1987 - February 1988). p.36 Dubuffet's writing on art brut was the subject of a noted program at the Art Club of Chicago in the early 1950s.
I’ve attached photos of the Bios of these artists along with examples of their work. To see a larger view for reading just click on the image.
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