Viewing Jean Dubuffet: Brutal Beauty

There hasn’t been a major Dubuffet exhibition in the UK for more than 50 years, but the Barbican has more than made up for it with this brilliant retrospective charting the extraordinary life and work of the ‘Art Brut’ pioneer.

The vast show explores Dubuffet’s radical postwar vision of a raw, gritty beauty and his endless experimentation with tools and materials, notably his mixing of paint with found materials such as glass, pebbles, string and gravel.

There are more than 150 works on display, from early portraits and lithographs to butterfly assemblages and giant doodle canvases. There are also two rooms of works from Dubuffet’s personal collection of ‘Art Brut’ (literally ‘raw’ art), including pieces by the medium Laure Pigeon.

‘Art should always make you laugh a little and fear a little,’ Dubuffet said. ‘Anything but bore.’ Needless to say, this exhibition does just that.