Opening reception: ‘Jean Dubuffet and the City’

  • Sat 9 June 2018
  • 6 pm

Please join us for the opening reception of ‘Jean Dubuffet and the City’, an exhibition dedicated to the seminal post-war European painter and sculptor, and his lifelong fascination with urban space. Curated by Dubuffet specialist Dr Sophie Berrebi, with the Fondation Dubuffet contributing research advice, this is the first presentation that focuses on exploring the role of the city in Dubuffet’s four decades of artistic accomplishments, highlighting the artist’s shifting depiction of urban characters, and the visual and experiential dynamism of Paris that influenced his work. Jean Dubuffet’s work is marked by a reaction against prevailing notions of high culture, beauty, and good taste. Over four decades he was both prolific and experimental, expressing his creativity in many forms including writing and music. He used a diverse range of art-making techniques, including painting, drawing, printmaking, large-scale outdoor sculpture, and works bridging painting, sculpture, dance, and theatre featuring live performers. For a time in the 1940s and early 1950s he painted using an impasto thickened by unorthodox materials such as sand, tar and putty, giving the work a highly textured surface. His resulting paintings were at once provocative and well received in Europe and the United States where they were exhibited alongside Picasso, Braque, and Rouault by the influential dealer Pierre Matisse. This is a free event, no booking necessary

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