Page 52 - Studio International - January 1973

The fair of mirages capacity for three-dimensional assertion. (This community . . . . has it anything to do
When they held a special mid-day press viewing The conundrums he played with all along in the with what Dubuffet thinks of as anarchism ?)
Dubuffet was there, his manner most obliging Hourloupe paintings and sculptures loom large, What they like about it is the way it blends
despite what he called his antipathy for the press. but become trivial in this context. All the works with the ambiance. It is not arresting, but only
I thought of his old phrase, the fair of mirages, in the Hourloupe series are in his masterplan to amusing. Theo Crosby was right in pointing out
of which he was one, this grinning, bowing, inundate the world, and they reside as parts of that 'some of the most successful modern public
happy puppeteer who, when the time came to the total Dubuffet in his head. What he calls sculpture has come about by intelligent choice of
make his remarks, revised the statement handed `the gymnastic of the spirit' is his own workout. an object which then works independently and
out to the press in order that he might stress his The pieces will all fit together in his grand design. in opposition to its setting' (Studio International,
admiration for David Rockefeller. He said : Not that the four trees don't fit well, they fit all July/August, 1972). The best public sculpture in
a man living in solitude like himself was a too well, and look good too. They are well relation to modern architecture ever shown in
maladroit public speaker, but . . . . He said formed, the leaves sufficiently shaped and New York was a huge Olmec head placed in
Wall Street was a nerve centre of the world with tilted to give visual pleasure. He knows how to front of the Seagram building. That really
tension, significance and prestige. He said he put things together (although those sturdy four worked in opposition to its setting. The old
was deeply impressed by the 'human experience' trunks seem a bit heavy-footed). But it anarchist Dubuffet . . . . is he ?
of working for David Rockefeller, this man conforms to his obsession with 'undifferentiated `It's Impossible that the Artist Should Work for
whose 'great enterprises all over the world' continuum' all too well. As Rockefeller says, it is the Plutocrat' — R. Fry. But when the artist
leave him so little time, but who yet visited for the enjoyment of the financial community. himself is a plutocrat ? El
Dubuffet several times in his studio. He said
he was grateful (at least five times). He could not The completed work in the Chase Manhattan plaza
have been more obsequious. Later, this mirage
of the grateful artist faded into the other mirage :
he said, when I asked, that of course the
sculpture was still against the aesthetic, against
geometry, and for 'unleashed thought.' He
answered, when I asked if he was still interested
in 'the man on the street' whom he used to
admire, that he was. 'In general, I don't like the
rich, but in America they are different.' Of his
workers : 'I have fourteen.' Do they need a
union ? 'Alas, that's probably coming, and it's
most inconvenient.' Did he mind working for a
capitalist ? 'I am totally an anarchist. I'm not a
sociologist. I don't believe in art either. I'm for
the Mongols. At the age of 4i I arrived at a
position of total despair, renouncement. I don't
give a damn if it's for capitalists or not. This
environment interests me. It's exciting, charged.
I love war, too. All the high tensions of the
spirit.' And finally, to evoke the old Dubuffet
definitively: 'The public — je m'en fou!'

The whole in his head
Sartre painted Tintoretto as an ego raging to fill
up the vessel of the world with his works.
Dubuffet, similarly, has always intended to
inundate us with himself. The Group of Four
Trees stands with aplomb on the Plaza, his
largest gesture of filling-up yet, and right, as he
says, in the heart of the world, the heart of the
heartless world. There they stand, four trunks
and numerous leaves, white and delicate
against the ribbed aluminium and glass of the
6o-storey Chase Manhattan mother office.
As Gordon Bunshaft, designer of the building,
said, no other colour would have worked.
White, with the black linear outlines, carrying
out Dubuffet's idea in the Hourloupe series, an
idea based on equivocation. The old
marionette- and mask-maker takes a light
material, which nevertheless must weigh many
tons to withstand the winds of Wall street,
and makes a papier mache oasis. Moreover,
since he is always for anti-culture, and must
therefore be for anti-monuments, he outlines
the white members with black lines calculated to
dematerialize the forms and remove their
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