Dubuffet, Jean, Personnage au costume rouge, 1961

Le Personnage au costume rouge, an assemblage transfer lithograph, depicts a clown with coarse, clumsy features. The work looks sloppy: the red overflows the outlines, like a child who has colored incorrectly, and the lithograph seems to have been carelessly splattered with paint. All these efforts to make the viewer’s eye believe that the work is sloppy (and wrongly so) reflect Jean Dubuffet’s artistic project, based on the rejection of cultural values.

“True art is always where you least expect it. Where no one thinks of it or speaks its name. Art hates to be recognized and greeted by its name, and immediately runs away, L’Homme du commun à l’ouvrage.