Featuring newly commissioned essays and photography of rarely exhibited works, this book highlights the radicalism of Jean Dubuffet, who was one of the most provocative voices of the postwar avant-garde. In 1940s occupied Paris, Jean Dubuffet began to champion a progressive vision for art; one that rejected classical notions of beauty in favor of a more visceral aesthetic. Taking a pioneering approach to materiality and technique, the artist variously blended paint with sand, glass, tar, coal dust, and string. At the same time, he began to assemble a collection of Art Brut--work that was made outside the academic tradition of fine art--even visiting psychiatric wards from 1945 to collect work by patients. This book features texts from leading scholars and is accompanied by images that illuminate Dubuffet's attempts to move beyond the artistic expectations of his time. The works are grouped into six thematic sections that focus on specific series, from his graffiti-inspired "Walls" and his notorious portrait series, "People are Much More Beautiful Than They Think" to the "Corps de dames," a controversial series of "female" landscapes, and his anthropomorphic sculptures, "Little Statues of Precarious Life." Exquisitely produced, this celebration of Dubuffet's work embraces his world view that art is for everyone, not just the elite.

Dubuffet and the City. People, Place and Urban Space,? written and edited by renowned scholar Dr. Sophie Berrebi (University of Amsterdam), is the first in-depth study to address the work of Jean Dubuffet (1901-1984) in relation to the theme of the city. The book examines how the city plays a role in the formation and unfolding of Dubuffet?s practice and imagination as a material, a source, and a vehicle for ideas. It analyses works in which the artist depicts city dwellers, sites and urban spaces, and discusses his architectural projects from the 1960s and 1970s against the background of heated debates in the field of urbanism. The book accompanies and extends an exhibition at Hauser & Wirth Zurich (June?Sept 2018). Along with full color reproductions of art works the book reproduces little-known archival material from the archives of the Fondation Dubuffet. It also includes several texts by Dubuffet that are translated here in English for the first time.00Exhibition: Hauser & Wirth, Zürich, Switzerland (10.06.-01.09.2018).

With his pioneering visual language, not least inspired by children and the mentally ill, Jean Dubuffet (1901-1985) succeeded in disengaging himself from traditions and reinventing art, so to speak. Dubuffet's influence can also still be felt in contemporary art and Street Art, for example in work by David Hockney, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Keith Haring.The point of departure for this presentation of the artist's multilayered oeuvre is Dubuffet's fascinating notion of landscape, which can also change into a body, a face, an object. He experimented with new techniques and materials, such as sand, butterfly wings, sponges, and slag, creating a unique pictorial universe. Besides important paintings and sculptures from all of the artist's creative phases, the volume also features Dubuffet's spectacular Coucou Bazar, a synthesis of the arts in which painting, sculpture, theater, dance, and music converge. (English edition ISBN 978-3-7757-4099-9)Exhibition: Fondation Beyeler, Riehen/Basel 31.1.-8.4.2016

Exhibition organized in collaboration with Collection d l'Art Brut Lausanne.

This is a captivating monograph of Jean Dubuffet. It will allow the viewer to enter the complex, intricate and controversial universe of a very engimatic character, still highly mysterious after his death.