Editing Outsider art (section)

== Jean Dubuffet and ''art brut'' ==
[[File:Losanna, collection de l'art brut, 05.JPG|thumb|View inside the [[Collection de l'art brut]] museum, [[Lausanne]]|244x244px]]

[[France|French]] artist [[Jean Dubuffet]] was particularly struck by ''Bildnerei der Geisteskranken'' and began his own collection of such art, which he called ''art brut'' or ''raw art''. In 1948 he formed the [[Compagnie de l'Art Brut]] along with other artists, including [[André Breton]] and [[Claude Lévi-Strauss]].<ref name=":2">{{Cite book |last=Sherman |first=Daniel J. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6YY06T1P0MQC |title=French Primitivism and the Ends of Empire, 1945-1975 |publisher=University of Chicago Press |year=2011 |isbn=9780226752693 |pages=12, 14, 111, 114}}</ref> The collection he established became known as the [[Collection de l'art brut]] and the curator was [[Slavko Kopač]] for almost three decades.<ref>[[:fr:Fabrice Flahutez|Fabrice Flahutez]], Pauline Goutain et Roberta Trapani, ''Slavko Kopač. Ombres et matières, Shadows and Materials'', Paris : Gallimard, Hors série Connaissance, 2022 352 p. (ISBN 978-2-07-295610-2)</ref> It contains thousands of works and is now permanently housed in [[Lausanne]], Switzerland.

Dubuffet characterized art brut as:

<blockquote>Those works created from [[solitude]] and from pure and authentic creative impulses – where the worries of competition, acclaim and social promotion do not interfere – are, because of these very facts, more precious than the productions of professionals. After a certain familiarity with these flourishings of an exalted feverishness, lived so fully and so intensely by their authors, we cannot avoid the feeling that in relation to these works, cultural art in its entirety appears to be the game of a futile society, a fallacious parade.
:— Jean Dubuffet, "Place à l'incivisme" (December 1987 – February 1988).<ref>Jean Dubuffet (December 1987 – February 1988). "Place à l'incivisme" ["Make Way for Incivism"]. ''Art and Text'' no. 27. p. 36.</ref></blockquote>

Dubuffet argued that 'culture', that is mainstream culture, managed to assimilate every new development in art, and by doing so took away whatever power it might have had. The result was to asphyxiate genuine expression. Art brut was his solution to this problem – only art brut was immune to the influences of culture, immune to being absorbed and assimilated, because the artists themselves were not willing or able to be assimilated.

Dubuffet's championing of Art Brut would not last long. Scholars argue Dubuffet's distaste for the mainstream art world helped ensure that art brut and the Compagnie de l'Art Brut would not survive on a commercial basis. Dubuffet would kill art brut as he defined it in his quest for its authenticity.<ref name=":2" /> Three years after the Compagnie de l'Art Brut was formed, Dubuffet dissolved it, caving in to form the more conventional Collection de l'art brut afterward.<ref name=":2" />