Contrepoint aux Outils

'...The manner ....of my Hourloupe paintings is that of an uninterrupted and resolutely uniform meandering script,(unifying all planes to the frontal plane, paying no heed to the particular space of the object described, neither in its dimensions, nor its distance nor closeness) thereby abolishing all particularities, all categories (by which I mean the usual classifications adopted by our reflexive mind which makes distinctions between one notion and another: between the notion of a 'chair' for example and that of a 'tree', that of a 'human figure', 'cloud', 'ground', landscape or anything else) so that this consistently uniform script indifferently applied to all things (and it should be emphasised, not only visible objects but also invisible inventions of our thoughts, imagination or fantasy: mixed together without discrimination) will reduce them to the lowest common denominator and restitute a continuous undifferentiated universe; it will thereby dissolve the categories which our mind habitually employs to decifer (better to say cipher) the facts and spectacles of the world. Herewith the circulation of the mind from one object to another, from one category to another will be liberated and its mobility greatly increased.' (Jean Dubuffet: Letter to Arnold Glimcher, September 15, 1969,reproduced in Jean Dubuffet:A Retrospective. exhib cat. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York,1973,p.26.)