La lunette farcie

Assigning a meaning to the apparent chaos of textual and artistic elements in this artists’ book by Jean Dubuffet is not easy. This is not so surprising when you consider that Dubuffet devoted his attention primarily to expressions of human imagination, spontaneity, individuality and creativity. Dubuffet used the term ‘art brut’ to describe his work. He focused on aspects that he felt were lacking in the ‘real’ or ‘high’ art of bourgeois culture, in which he believed artistic skills were destroyed. ‘La lunette farcie’ is a photographic reproduction of a handwritten text by Dubuffet. The handwriting is an unpunctuated scrawl. In order to follow the text, you have to keep turning the book. The words appear to have been included primarily for their visual qualities, as they ‘move’ around the affixed photographs in which structures can be seen, structures that are reminiscent of a pebble beach and which were created through an arbitrary use of materials and techniques, with coincidence playing an important role.