On November 15, 1986, the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice, will inaugurate an exhibition (opening to the public November 16) dedicated to the work of the French master Jean Dubuffet, which will be shown together with examples of wath Dubuffet himself called Art Brut. This will be the firs occasion on which Dubuffet and Art Brut have been seen together, and the first major exhibition of Dubuffet’s work in Venice since 1964.
In accordance with the terms of a grant from United Technologies Corporation, this will be the second year in which the Guggenheim Collection has been opened in the winter months, with a temporary exhibition in the galleries of Palazzo Venier dei Leoni. For the first time in its history the Collection will remain open throughout the winter, closing March 16, 1987 in preparation for the reopening of Peggy Guggenheim’s collection in April 1987.
Dubuffet will be presented exclusively from the combined collections of The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation – predominantly from the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York. A major, complementary loan will consist of ca. 40 items from the Collection de l’Art Brut, Lausanne, founded in 1976, the institution that has received the gift of Dubuffet’s own collection of Art Brut.
Dubuffet, who died in 1985 at the age of 84, is acknowledged as one of the most original creators of the post-war European art. Art Brut was the name he himself gave to the expressive activity of psychotics, mediums and untrained practitioners. The term is intended to refer to raw creativity as opposed to the productions of professionals working within a cultural mainstream. The exhibition, which will not travel, is curated by Thomas M. Messer, Director of The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation and by Fred Licht, Curator of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection. The catalogue will be published by Arnoldo Mondadori Editore, Milan.