50 years of the Lausanne Collection de l’Art Brut: between raw and rose-tinted

The Collection de l’Art Brut in Lausanne is turning 50 – and is marking the occasion with an exhibition. It tells the story of how an untamed art form found fertile ground in Switzerland. Art Brut en Suisse takes visitors back to the early days, when art created in psychiatric clinics went unseen for a long time. Art Brut exists everywhere. It refers to art created by people without formal artistic training: amateurs, children, social outsiders and people with mental illness or intellectual disabilities. The discovery of Art Brut and its recognition as art, however, are closely linked to Switzerland. The term Art Brut was coined by French artist Jean Dubuffet, who saw in this art a raw power untouched by the art world. In July 1945, Dubuffet travelled through Switzerland. He visited mental hospitals and prisons – places where some doctors and therapists had begun to view, and collect, pictures and objects created by patients with curiosity. Adolf Wölfli: from indentured boy to ...