michel thévoz : synthesizing notes

these are just fragments for writing coming...later :

on children's drawings: it's noted that although there may be some preconception of a piece at the onset, it's likely that it'll be changed if the actual execution (an exact rendering) hinders the speed or joy of mark-making and discovery.

thévoz references the malapropism! i wish i'd read this ages ago. i have a long-standing crush on mrs. malaprop. she was brilliant! anyway, he suggests that the art-brutist creates the intentional malapropism and that while not able to entirely ignore spoken/written language, she takes liberty in using existing symbols to create her own mutant language.

Francis Ponge says (my translation) : "language (words) are all made and express themselves: they do not ever express me. there is where i choke (on them). it is then that to teach the art of resisting language would be useful--the art only says what one wants to say, the art of power and of the subject... so, let us ridicule words with a catastrophe!! it's a simple abuse of language."

art brut intends to mettre en cause (jeopardize) the location or the meaning or the territory of art-propre. it was born as an outsider, but is not diametrically opposed to "art culturel." Dubuffet compares it to a strange wind blowing against culture--challenging it to mutate and perhaps dry up before our very eyes.

Paul Klée dit que "l'acte d'écrire et l'acte de représenter sont à la bas une seule et même chose"
I agree. (the act of writing and the act of representing are at base one in the same thing)

"le fou serait un homme qui n'a pas su refouler ses instincts normaux et se conforme à une société anormale" . I agree here too. (the madman is the man who hasn't doubled back his normal instincts and conformed himself to an abnormal society)

contradicting Dubuffet's argument for individualisme, Thévoz suggests that in order to be considered individual there must be a society present to make such a claim. the art brutists are too far gone to be considered alongside "normal". they're not other than . they're outside of .
art brut "implicates us intimately" in the neutralization of le Moi (ego) // l'autre and reveals that the uncanny / exotic are also familiar within each of us.