The colorful paper that Matisse found such pleasure in cutting out and arranging into joyous visual celebrations in the last decade of his life, is the star attraction at MOMA, New York, from October 12th through February 8th. Simply called “The Cut-Outs”, it will undoubtedly offer saturated tropical color as succor for winter-weary visitors.
More somber in tone, but equally uplifting in its freedom of expression and bold experimentations in alternative and natural mediums is Dubuffet’s smaller exhibit called ,”The Soul of the Underground”.
What a feast for those of us who appreciate the beauty beneath their feet, in shadow play, rusting metal and “untrained” art creation…
Dubuffet was one of the seminal promoters of naive art and responsible for its appellation, Art Brut, (Raw Art).
He embraced the art of children, the insane and the art of non-Western cultures previously considered “primitive” by Western academic standards. About his own art-making,he says, “I would like people to see my work as a rehabilitation of scorned values and, in any case, make no mistake about it, a work of ardent celebration."
It truly is…
Don’t miss this inspiring exhibition by the grandfather of Outsider Art from October 18th through April 5th!
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| Soul of the Underground by Jean Dubuffet |
MOMA writes on their website: “Jean Dubuffet (French, 1901–1985) maintained a rebellious attitude toward prevailing notions of high culture, beauty, and good taste, and was a relentless innovator from the time he committed himself to art making in the early 1940s. Jean Dubuffet: Soul of the Underground, the first monographic presentation on the artist at MoMA in over 25 years, illuminates Dubuffet’s radical experimentation with form and material by focusing on the key moment in his career, from the 1940s to the mid-1960s. He mixed sand, gravel, and other materials into his pigments, applying them in layers with brushes and palette knives to create a thickened impasto, and then excavated images from them by scratching and scraping away with the pointed handle of his paintbrush. He revolutionized lithography, experimenting with textures by attacking lithographic stones with sandpaper, rags, and chemicals, and creating images with dirt, fruit peels, leaves, and other organic materials. Drawings in ink or gouache mimicked these feats of combination and re-combination, resulting in surfaces of decaying or ever-expanding membranes.”
