Jean Dubuffet

The Théâtres de mémoire is one of Dubuffet’s most important series of works, and contains some of the largest paintings he ever made. The series, which Dubuffet started at age 74, also marked a new technique for him and a redefinition of his art. Each work is a vast picture made up of smaller paintings, which the artist cut out and glued to the canvas. He began his process on his studio floor, where he would arrange different combinations of cut-out figures and scenes. He then used magnets to pin the paper or canvas to the wall, allowing him to easily replace one element with another, and to overlap segments until he reached his final compositions—some spanning up to nearly eight feet high by twelve feet wide.

The paintings depict abstractions, landscapes, scribbles and figures from Dubuffet’s mind. Dubuffet titled the series after Frances Yates’ book The Art of Memory, which presents the ‘memory techniques’ used by Cicero and orators in the Middle Ages that enabled them to remember storehouses of knowledge. For Dubuffet, each of the Théâtres de mémoire is a collection of actual places and scenes that crowd and conflict in our memory. Just as memories are hazy and incoherent, the compositions have no clear narrative or starting point. In Dramatisation (1978) for example, Dubuffet brings together 42- elements to create an energetic assemblage of large and small figures and abstractions. Dubuffet requires the viewers to participate in this frenzy of visual information, and asks them to get lost in contemplation and experience, in Dubuffet’s words, “viewing by the mind, not the eyes”.

Further highlights of the exhibition include Mêle moments (1976), Les données de I'instant (1977), and Site aux disjonctions (1977) on loan from the Fondation Dubuffet and private collections. These works depict individuals and groupings of figures executed in distinctive styles and colors that reference earlier phases in Dubuffet’s oeuvre. As explained by Dr. Kent Minturn in the catalogue essay: “The individual elements bring to mind many of Dubuffet’s past series, including his early Marionnettes de la ville et de la campagne (1942–45), Paris Circus (1961–62), l’Hourloupe (1962–74) and his more recent haphazard Crayonnages and Parachiffres (1974–75). They are the gateway to the artist’s chief interests and obsessions that will dominate the last ten years of his artistic production”.