Recensement (Census)

Executed in 1979, Recensement (Census) belongs to the series Brefs exercices d’école journalière (Short Daily School Exercises) that occupied Jean Dubuffet between March and December that year. With its composite collage of figures and patterns, it is closely related to the celebrated sequence of large-scale assemblages Théâtres de mémoire (Theatres of Memory) that the artist had begun four years earlier. Having completed his twelve-year cycle l’Hourloupe – a series devoted to re-imagining the physical world – Dubuffet’s thoughts turned increasingly inward, breeding a fascination with mental landscapes. Already well into his seventies, the artist was inspired by Dame Frances Yates’ 1966 book The Art of Memory, which discussed different psychological theories stretching back to the Renaissance. Enthralled by the notion of memory as a fusion of places and images – concepts both central to his oeuvre – he began to look back upon his own practice, collaging together pictorial elements reminiscent of his various series: the delineated motifs of l’Hourloupe, for example, the swarming cellular rhythms of Paris Circus or the curious characters of his 1950s portraits. In these works, Dubuffet gave new form to the principle underpinning his entire practice – namely, that the mind creates its own reality, taking the information provided by the eyes and spinning it into a whirling dance. In 1978, the artist shifted to working in black felt tip, before returning to colour for the Brefs exercices d’école journalière. Conceived as a set of daily journal entries, these works extend the premise of the Théâtres de mémoire on a condensed, intimate scale.