August Issue 2001
Winthrop University in Rock Hill, SC, Presents International Collection of Portraits from Switzerland
Portraits et Personnages opens Aug. 15 and continues through Oct. 28, in the
Rutledge Gallery of Winthrop University in Rock Hill, SC.
The exhibition entitled, Portraits et Personnages: Selected
Works from the Collection de l'Art Brut's Neuve Invention,
presents 50 works on paper that depict portraits or human characterizations
from the internationally recognized museum in Lausanne, Switzerland.
Co-curated by Genevieve Roulin and Tom Stanley, the exhibition
provides a glimpse of some of Roulin's favorite artists from the
museum's Neuve Invention Collection. Roulin was the curator at
the Collection de l'Art Brut until her death this past January.
Portrait
of Jean Dubuffet by Pierre Bettencourt
The Collection de l'Art Brut was established in Lausanne in 1976. The museum houses art works collected by French modern artist Jean Dubuffet (1901-1985). Disillusioned from an early age by what he considered the "artificial, elitist, venal and publicity-seeking institutions set up to support the arts," Dubuffet looked outside of the established art world for a purer, more honest art form. He found it in art work that had not been compromised by the academy or gallery system.
Though the artists that Dubuffet discovered often existed on the margins of society he contended that their art revealed a raw, singular vision. According to Michel Thévoz, director of the Collection de l'Art Brut, Dubuffet sought out "an art free of the dictates of tradition or fashion, an art liberated from all social compromise, an art which draws its strength from an impassioned way of thinking and an almost autistic inner necessity."
In addition to the primary collection of Art Brut, Dubuffet established a second collection called Neuve Invention (fresh invention). Though many of these works did not represent the initial "radical distancing" from the art world that typified Art Brut, they nonetheless challenged the fine-art system that, according to Dubuffet, stifled a revolutionary art of consequence. In many ways, Dubuffet's passionate advocacy of Art Brut and the Neuve Invention was a political attack on what he considered to be a stagnant cultural establishment.
"Another aspect of this exhibition which is meaningful is the opportunity to see an aesthetic accepted by many collectors in Europe. Certainly different from 'Outsider' or contemporary folk art that has a following in the United States, Art Brut and the Neuve Invention has a more psychological edge," said co-curator Stanley.
Free public educational programs for Portraits et Personnages include a lecture by Tom Stanley titled "Art Brut: Truth and Sincerity" on Sept. 23, at 3pm in Rutledge Auditorium. Also, Jenifer Borum, co-curator of ABCD: A Collection of Art Brut currently at the Museum of American Folk Art at Lincoln Center in New York, will present a lecture titled "Art Brut: Knowledge and Diffusion" on Oct. 21, at 3pm in Rutledge Auditorium.
Portraits et Personnages will travel to Wake Forest University Fine Arts Gallery, Winston-Salem, NC, from Feb. 8 through Mar. 24, 2002, and the Halsey Gallery at the College of Charleston in Charleston, SC, from May 10 through June 9, 2002.
For further information check our SC Institutional
Gallery listings or call Tom Stanley, Gallery Director at 803/323-2493
or e-mail at (stanley@winthrop.edu).
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