“Jean Dubuffet, 1943–1963: Paintings, Sculptures, Assemblages” at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.
June 17–September 12, 1993
Going against the fashionable trend toward Everything-He-Ever-Did exhibitions of individual artists, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden is currently presenting a highly selective look at the career of Jean Dubuffet (1901–1985). The exhibition was organized by James T. Demetrion, the Hirshhorn’s director, who tells us that he regards Dubuffet as one of a “triumvirate of [postwar] European giants.” Under Mr. Demetrion’s guiding hand, the Hirshhorn has also given major shows to the other members of that triumvirate, Francis Bacon and Alberto Giacometti.
I wouldn’t go as far as Mr. Demetrion in my praise of Dubuffet. For me, Giacometti stands head and shoulders above him as well as Bacon. But there is no denying that this exhibition serves Dubuffet well. By stopping in the early 1960s, it introduces us to, but spares us too close acquaintance with, the uniform and uniformly shallow late work. This concluding phase of Dubuffet’s career, with its all-over mosaic of highly stylized figurative imagery, is epitomized by his sculpture in Chase Manhattan Plaza in downtown New York, a commission that was supposed to have gone to Giacometti.
The focus of this show, then, is the aftermath of Dubuffet’s discovery of “art brut,” or “raw art,” the “naïve” artwork of children and the insane.
The focus of this show, then, is the aftermath of Dubuffet’s discovery of “art brut,” or “raw art,” the