Collection de l'Art brut: The Artistic giant and adventures leading to its Discovery

Collection de l'Art brut

And we were lost again. Travellers in a city, searching for a museum, lost again. It seems all nice now that thinking about that point when we were lost, feeling like achievers having had an adventure but believe me that is not the same feeling you have when your lost. Especially in a new city searching for a museum. We travelled half the city by bus and the other half on foot. We explored the darkest parts of the city and enquired from almost all the population of Lausanne.

We found everything other that what we had to find – the museum. When we finally did find the museum we were an hour late. But in the end it was worth it.

Collection de l'Art brut. It was worth all the effort that went into it. Worth all the pains we took to search for it. It was one of

the best museums that I’ve ever been to. It contained few of the most creative things ever created because the creations were the true representations of the soul without any social restrictions or mental boundaries. Pure art. They were beautiful.

This form of art, namely Brut Art, got its name from the French artist Jean Dubuffet which incorporated all the art out the normal and social boundaries of art. Primarily this was meant for pieces of art created by mentally instable or even completely insane and institutionalized people but slowly it came to incorporate all those artists who were self taught and had very little or no contact with the mainstream art world. The collection included works of artists like Aata Oko, Frederick Bruly Buabre and Nek Chand.

Visiting the museum, for me particularly, was a very humbling and eye opening experience. This world of lost artist, some of them who aren't even recognized today as artists, was like a portal to a wholly new dimension where everything was decided not by the strenght of your mind but by the soaring of your thoughts. Every creation in that museum was the brain child of one person alone and it represented their struggle and success in preserving, in expressing their thoughts as their own and not letting the society or anyone else let their creation be destroyed. It, to me, portrayed the struggle of free thought against a collective understanding. The art seemed to show that if you have the strength to break the bonds and take flight, nothing can stop you from gaining freedom - freedom of imagination.