Charlotte Flint is Curatorial Assistant of Jean Dubuffet: Brutal Beauty, a Barbican exhibition due to open to the public on May 17. We go behind the scenes with her to find out more about the mysterious artist at the heart of this show.

I feel extremely lucky that we are able to share this exhibition with the world and I take a lot of solace in that. One of the biggest challenges for us was a lack of any certainty over if, and when, we could hope to open the exhibition, as it was originally due to open to the public in September 2020. Galleries and museums all over the world have been in a state of flux, trying to reorganise their programming, and in worse case scenarios, cancelling long-planned exhibitions.

Fingers crossed that by May 17, when the show opens to the public, we will be over most of the hurdles! It’s been very challenging bringing the exhibition together as we are borrowing amazing artworks from a number of different countries in the midst of a global pandemic, but there has been an incredible will and spirit to make this show happen — which makes it feel even more special.

I still feel like I’m being constantly surprised by Dubuffet and his work. Dubuffet is a nonconformist in every sense of the word and I have been delighted to learn about his energy and thirst for life: from his years spent as a wine merchant, his bohemian lifestyle with his wife Lili (including a love of playing the accordion!), his decision to devote himself fully to art aged 41 and his admiration for artists existing beyond the so-called mainstream.

This doesn’t even touch on his art-making practice, which is more akin to alchemy — using gravel, sand, sponge, butterfly wings, shards of glass, lava and remnants of burnt cars (to name but a few) — to bring vital work to life that captured his constant experimentation.

I hope that visitors to the exhibition come away feeling inspired and empowered to question what art is and can be and who can make it. I also really hope visitors feel energised by the vigorous spirit of creation that is embodied by Dubuffet and the sixteen Art Brut artists in the exhibition.

Dubuffet actively rejected the traditional, academic art of his day stating that he wanted his paintings to ‘amuse and interest the man in the street, when he gets out of work, not the finicky, nor the sophisticated, but the man who has no training nor particular opinions’. So, he certainly aimed for his artwork to have a mass appeal, rather than being produced for an art world elite, but he was also part of the system that he rejected. As an educated, upper middle-class man whose artwork was commercially successful, to some extent he was far removed form the ‘man in the street’ who he sought to impress. Dubuffet was very mindful of this and did address this paradox; in a 1977 interview with art historian Michael Peppiatt he said: ‘the success my work has had is quite contrary to the beliefs I hold’.

Dubuffet described his rejection of academic art as ‘anti-cultural’; I would go as far as to say this is pivotal to his entire artistic output and identity. In addition to constantly making art, Dubuffet was also a prolific writer, and he gave a lecture in December 1951 called Anticultural Positions where he outlined his rejection of artistic convention and culture. He said: ‘[this culture] no longer has real and living roots… I aim for an art which would be in immediate connection with daily life, an art which… would be a very direct and very sincere expression of our real life and our real moods’. For Dubuffet, art was an opportunity to reflect the reality of life in all its grittiness and wonder — which is why the title Brutal Beauty feels so apt!

My favourite part of working on this exhibition has been working on the two sections of the show that include artists from Dubuffet’s collection of Art Brut. Drawn to the work of self-taught artists, which he felt was ‘more alive and passionate than any of the boring art that has been officially catalogued’, Dubuffet became interested in art made by graffitists, tattooists, spiritualists, incarcerated people and individuals in psychiatric care.

Between 1945 and 1971, he collected more than 5,000 artworks by 133 creators; he called this work ‘Art Brut’, which literally means ‘raw’ or ‘crude’ art. In English, Art Brut is often referred to as Outsider Art, but since Dubuffet fought against established cultural norms and was critical of labelling anyone an ‘outsider’, we have decided to keep his original term throughout our discussions of this work.

He donated his collection to the city of Lausanne in Switzerland and we have worked closely with the Collection de l’Art Brut, which houses these artworks, to curate two displays of work by artists from Dubuffet’s collection. It’s so exciting to be exhibiting work by sixteen remarkable Art Brut artists alongside Dubuffet’s own work, foregrounding the radical effect they had on his own practice and his understanding of what art had the potential to do. Some of these artists are very little known, so the exhibition has been an incredible opportunity to do further research and learn more about their extraordinary practice.

Working on this exhibition, there has never really been an average day! Any day can see a combination of research and writing, meetings with artists, designers and architects, assisting with loans and logistics, installing artwork in the gallery with our technical team, giving tours and participating in events, as well as working on the exhibition catalogue and accompanying public programme. It is busy and varied and certainly keeps me on my toes.

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