PARIS.- À propos: Made in vastly different contexts, the lithographies by Jean Dubuffet (1901-1985, France) - painter, sculptor and founder of the art brut movement - resonate in many ways with the contemporary photographic works by Chuck Kelton (1952, USA). Both bodies of work consider questions of process, matter and surface; the artistic gesture vs. chance. Upturning the conventional practice of their medium, both artists seek a humble art form, a modest yet universal beauty.
Experience the raw energy of Jean Dubuffet’s vision—buy these essential monographs on Amazon now to deepen your appreciation of his unique style.
The exhibition title is a handwritten note found in Chuck Kelton’s preparatory notebooks that describes the emotion he seeks to evoke with his works. Interestingly, just as Dubuffet was a passionate collector of art brut, Chuck Kelton is also an avid collector and an American museum recently exhibited his personal collection of African masks, acquired over several decades, alongside his own experimental chemigrams.
Jean Dubuffet and printmaking
Jean Dubuffet's lithography is a lesser-known aspect of his opus yet his printmaking was prolific: Dubuffet began making prints in the mid-1940s, achieving a total output of some 1500 works, many for illustrated books (such as Matière et Mémoire with French writer Francis Ponge, 1944-45). His experimental practice is considered to have revolutionised lithography: scratching the lithographic stones with sandpaper, he rubbed them with rags and other unconventional materials to achieve varied effects.
In this form of expression, Dubuffet appreciated “the modesty, the unrecognised beauty...[the possibility of] creating, on the perfect grained surface, accidents, material effects that lithography has not yet seen", opening up a whole register of unexpected nuances compared to the usual, uniform black of lithographic ink. The prints allowed Dubuffet to obtain astonishing images: with the Phénomènes series (1957-1962), he considered himself to be a simple "revealer' of a world to which our daily gaze blinds us. On the stone or the zinc surface, the artist magnified discarded elements - plant and dust fragments - transforming them until we lose scale and identity, to the point of discovering a dazzling cosmogony.” - Daniel Abadie, art historian (1945-2023).
The Paris exhibition will propose signed original lithographs by Jean Dubuffet from his landmark series Matière et Mémoire and Phénomènes, from the collection of baudoin lebon.
Chuck Kelton and cameraless photography
After his first sell-out show at Galerie Miranda, the spring 2025 exhibition will present a new selection of beautiful works by this exceptional artist.
Chuck Kelton makes unique, camera-less photographs, working in full daylight outside of the darkroom and spending weeks, sometimes months, sketching and preparing each work. A master printer, Kelton is also a passionate collector of photographs, practical manuals and tools from the history of photography. He explores 19th century techniques and chemistry such as gold chloride and selenium, that he combines with bleach and developer to coax a lush palette of colours from light sensitive, traditional silver gelatin papers.
Kelton invites us into a romantic world that seems nonetheless on the edge of calamity. His imagery is delicate and composed but also the product of improvisation and accident, resulting in highly atmospheric and timeless images: “I’m looking for spectacular images, something I haven’t seen before, something that references photography and a hundred other things both historical and visual. A moment where chaos seems to undermine harmony. A moment where you feel threatened and peaceful, a visual dialogue between oppositions; irrational and rational, belief to disbelief, something at once known and unknown.”
Chuck Kelton is represented in Europe by Galerie Miranda.
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