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Lot Essay
Jean Dubuffet’s striking Hourloupe motif marked a major leap in the artist’s career. Created between 1962 and 1974, they would have a profound impact on his paintings, drawings, and sculptures from that important period. Clochepoche, a painted polyester resin sculpture, was conceived in 1973 at the height of the series’ evolution. With its graceful free-form union of color and shape, it stands as a testament to how brilliantly the artist had mastered this convergence of style and materials. As Dubuffet noted, “Their movement sets off in the observer’s mind a hyper activation of the visionary faculty. In these interlacings, all kinds of objects form and dissolve as the eyes scan the surface, linking intimately the transitory and the permanent, the real and the fallacious” (J. Dubuffet, Writings on Sculpture, Düsseldorf, 2011, p. 98). The intent of the Hourloupes was to provoke new ways of thinking about depiction and expression, and in three-dimensional works like Clochepoche, these concepts were elevated beyond the pictorial surface into an exceptional new form of figurative architecture.
At just over seven feet in height, Clochepoche is an energetic figure that bears a clear resemblance to human form, yet exists beyond conventional parameters of representation. Instead, it is an abstracted and expressionistic representation of a larger-than-life figure. The name itself, Clochepoche, conjures associations of a theatrical character that lends distinct personality to the form. The series of vibrant shapes that make up the work are locked together like reassembled jigsaw pieces. We see a head, with a defined face, a hat, and body. Two outstretched hands wave at angles, suggesting a figure in motion, while the legs are in a steady stance. The pure white surface serves as a base for a series of graphic touches in black, blue, and red. Lines and hatching are gracefully placed across the work with varying uses of color and thickness across its multi-dimensional surface. The bright colored, theatrical design is typical of the Hourloupes, which first originated from the artist’s mind as he found himself idly making automatic drawings with ballpoint pens. Indeed, the colors used are the same as those of writing pens, and the dynamic movement of the lines and three-dimensional shapes retain this automatic expressionism even in large-scale sculptural form.
The Hourloupes, which evolved from the Paris Circus painting series that Dubuffet launched in 1961, were an innovative and wholly original way of seeing the world. This exciting visual lexicon was one that was based on new intellectual concepts of pictorial depictions and the meaning of reality. Dubuffet had entered a phase where his art served to tell a visual story, not a literal one, and where he encouraged a sense of exploration and introspection in considering his work. Of this shift in his progression, Dubuffet declared that “It is the unreal now that enchants me; I have an appetite for nontruth, the false life, the anti-world; my efforts are launched on the path of irrealism. …I continue moreover to think, as I always have, that truly violent and highly efficacious effects are arrived at by skillfully dosing marriages of irrealism with realism, the presence of one seeming to me necessary in order to manifest the other. In the paintings I now plan to do there will only be aggressively unreasonable forms, colors gaudy without reason, a theater of irrealaties, an outrageous attempt against everything existing, the way wide open for the most outlandish inventions” (J. Dubuffet, quoted in A. Frankze, Dubuffet, New York, 1981, p. 147). This merging of reality with a dose of fantasy informed the name of the series itself. The word Hourloupe was an invented one that Dubuffet explained as being based on its sound. It suited his needs for its evocative associations, which hinted at something wonderful and removed from reality, thus more closely linked to a fantasy world and individual mythology.
As the Hourloupes developed, Dubuffet found that three-dimensional forms were a natural progression for his artistic intentions. In challenging notions of reality, he was also challenging the conventions of medium and style. In this sense, works like Clochepoche were created from the perspective of a painter, rather than a sculptor. Essentially, what Dubuffet was doing was taking these wonderfully inventive shapes made by twists of the pen and brush, and now painting them in solid form. To achieve this, he first used a very delicate form of white polystyrene plastic, which allowed the shape to be easily manipulated and cut using a heated wire. Eventually, he shifted his production methods towards polyester resin, which proved much more durable and suitable for large-scale and outdoor works. Clochepoche was conceived at a time when the artist was taking on more ambitious works that included suites of sculptures, integrated performances, and monumental public commissions. The intention to bring this cherished concept to life in many forms is one that served his oeuvre in his life and beyond, and stands as a testament to the dynamism and exceptional inventiveness of the Hourloupes.
At just over seven feet in height, Clochepoche is an energetic figure that bears a clear resemblance to human form, yet exists beyond conventional parameters of representation. Instead, it is an abstracted and expressionistic representation of a larger-than-life figure. The name itself, Clochepoche, conjures associations of a theatrical character that lends distinct personality to the form. The series of vibrant shapes that make up the work are locked together like reassembled jigsaw pieces. We see a head, with a defined face, a hat, and body. Two outstretched hands wave at angles, suggesting a figure in motion, while the legs are in a steady stance. The pure white surface serves as a base for a series of graphic touches in black, blue, and red. Lines and hatching are gracefully placed across the work with varying uses of color and thickness across its multi-dimensional surface. The bright colored, theatrical design is typical of the Hourloupes, which first originated from the artist’s mind as he found himself idly making automatic drawings with ballpoint pens. Indeed, the colors used are the same as those of writing pens, and the dynamic movement of the lines and three-dimensional shapes retain this automatic expressionism even in large-scale sculptural form.
The Hourloupes, which evolved from the Paris Circus painting series that Dubuffet launched in 1961, were an innovative and wholly original way of seeing the world. This exciting visual lexicon was one that was based on new intellectual concepts of pictorial depictions and the meaning of reality. Dubuffet had entered a phase where his art served to tell a visual story, not a literal one, and where he encouraged a sense of exploration and introspection in considering his work. Of this shift in his progression, Dubuffet declared that “It is the unreal now that enchants me; I have an appetite for nontruth, the false life, the anti-world; my efforts are launched on the path of irrealism. …I continue moreover to think, as I always have, that truly violent and highly efficacious effects are arrived at by skillfully dosing marriages of irrealism with realism, the presence of one seeming to me necessary in order to manifest the other. In the paintings I now plan to do there will only be aggressively unreasonable forms, colors gaudy without reason, a theater of irrealaties, an outrageous attempt against everything existing, the way wide open for the most outlandish inventions” (J. Dubuffet, quoted in A. Frankze, Dubuffet, New York, 1981, p. 147). This merging of reality with a dose of fantasy informed the name of the series itself. The word Hourloupe was an invented one that Dubuffet explained as being based on its sound. It suited his needs for its evocative associations, which hinted at something wonderful and removed from reality, thus more closely linked to a fantasy world and individual mythology.
As the Hourloupes developed, Dubuffet found that three-dimensional forms were a natural progression for his artistic intentions. In challenging notions of reality, he was also challenging the conventions of medium and style. In this sense, works like Clochepoche were created from the perspective of a painter, rather than a sculptor. Essentially, what Dubuffet was doing was taking these wonderfully inventive shapes made by twists of the pen and brush, and now painting them in solid form. To achieve this, he first used a very delicate form of white polystyrene plastic, which allowed the shape to be easily manipulated and cut using a heated wire. Eventually, he shifted his production methods towards polyester resin, which proved much more durable and suitable for large-scale and outdoor works. Clochepoche was conceived at a time when the artist was taking on more ambitious works that included suites of sculptures, integrated performances, and monumental public commissions. The intention to bring this cherished concept to life in many forms is one that served his oeuvre in his life and beyond, and stands as a testament to the dynamism and exceptional inventiveness of the Hourloupes.