I had given up ( around 1950, fh) any ambition of making a career as an artistโฆ..I had lost all interest in the art shown in galleries and museums, and I no longer aspired to fit in that world. I loved the paintings done by children, and my only desire was to do the same for my own pleasure.
Jean DubuffetArt doesn't go to sleep in the bed made for it. It would sooner run away than say its own name: what it likes is to be incognito. Its best moments are when it forgets what its own name is.
Jean DubuffetThere is no art without intoxication. But I mean a mad intoxication! Let reason teeter! Delirium!
Jean DubuffetPersonally, I believe very much in values of savagery; I mean: instinct, passion, mood, violence, madness.
Jean DubuffetUnless one says goodbye to what one loves, and unless one travels to completely new territories, one can expect merely a long wearing away of oneself and an eventual extinction.
Jean DubuffetIn the name of what - except perhaps the coefficient of rarity - does man adorn himself with necklaces of shells and not spider's webs, with fox fur and not fox innards? In the name of what I don't know. Don't dirt, trash and filth, which are man's companions during his whole lifetime, deserve to be dearer to him and isn't it serving him well to remind him of their beauty?
Jean Dubuffet