Musée du Niel

At the same time, between 1949 and 1951, the CoBrA movement hailing from northern Europe carved out its own particularly specific space and, breaking away from abstraction, primitivising its expression by sometimes bringing it comparably close to children’s drawings, created a unique universe distinct from the main artistic currents. 

A few years later, at the beginning of the 50s, Michel Tapié, Jean Dubuffet’s friend, gallerist, critic and a central figure in the art market, developed the concept of “art autre” (another art) and emphasised the need to position oneself in another artistic space as if in a parallel world to exploit diverse, subjective and informal sources of inspiration.  It was from these three independent initiatives, which apparently had nothing in common, that emerged unconventional artists, true individualists and diverse and singular expressions that would leave a mark on the second half of the 20th century: original, unique even, often surprising, paradoxical, sometimes disturbing, in a constant creative exuberance which shaped the future evolution of contemporary art.

Michel Tapié, Un Art Autre, 1952

“Creators worthy of the name are aware that they cannot convey their inevitable message outside the bounds of what is exceptional, paroxystic, magical and utterly ecstatic”