Jean Dubuffet: Works, Writings, Interviews (Essentials Poligrafa)
Category: Books,Arts & Photography,History & Criticism
Jean Dubuffet: Works, Writings, Interviews (Essentials Poligrafa) Details
As an enemy of culture and of the art of museums, Jean Dubuffet (1901-1985) was also an anarchist, an atheist, anti-military and unpatriotic. He was an explosive force, a rebel who rejected labels and categories, resolute in his quest for freedom from all constraints, and not incidentally one of the most remarkable artists of the twentieth century. Over an extraordinarily productive career from 1942 to 1985, Dubuffet found himself drawn to the art of children and madmen, which he endowed with legitimacy and credibility as Art Brut. This in turn inclined him towards extreme forms and the expressive scrawls and scribbles of graffiti, and prompted him to begin experimenting with materials such as bitumen, sand and plant fibers, which made him one of the earliest and most prominent Matter artists. As a prolific writer, and sometimes a cruel polemicist, Dubuffet left a storehouse of written work that offers invaluable insight into his vision of art.
Reviews
As per the title, I got this book mainly for the writings of Jean Dubuffet. Instead, I found that most of the text is written by authors Valérie Da Costa and Fabrice Hergott about the artist's work and life. It's very interesting, but not what I had in mind. Included are also the text that Dubuffet wrote for a catalogue of an exhibition of Art Brut; a transcript of his lecture at the Arts Club in Chicago; his notes for a television interview; and the transcript of a radio interview. It sounds like a lot, but in reality, only a relatively small number of pages is devoted to the actual words of the man. There are also several dozen color reproductions of his work. The image quality is very decent, but not outstanding. Often the text is interrupted by several pages of photographs of his work, which makes it a little bit distracting and hard to follow. I'm probably being picky, though. If you buy this book with full knowledge of all these issues, it's likely that you will enjoy it.