JEAN DUBUFFET (Le Havre, France, 1901 - Paris, France, 1985). "Mire G 66 (Kowloon)", 1983. Acrylic on paper adhered to canvas. Signed with initials and dated in the upper left corner. With label on the back of The Pace Gallery. Attached certificate issued by the Guy Pieters Gallery. Measurements: 68 x 100 cm; 92 x 124 cm (frame). In the last stage of his life, Dubuffet obviates any figurative reference and uses gestural lines to express the most abstract aspects of thought. In his "Mire" series, he makes colorful tangles his main theme, analyzing what experience would be like if the mind did not organize the external world into preconceived, watertight categories, a theme that formed the backbone of his entire production and his commitment to "Art Brut", whose name he himself coined. The artist states: "These paintings should be considered learning practices of a new form of vision: a vision that has been freed from the misleading nomenclature with which humanism declares to analyze and catalog the changing mobile chaos of the universe". Although "Mira G 132 (Kowloon)" seems stripped of recognizable figures, a closer look reveals how in numerous areas faces are suggested. In fact, the subtitle refers to the bustling Hong Kong city of Kowloon. A French painter and sculptor, Jean Dubuffet settled in Paris in 1918 with the idea of studying painting at the Académie Julian, but after six months of training he abandoned his studies to become self-taught. Following his own path, in 1924 he stopped painting because of his doubts about the value of art, and took over his father's business, a wine merchant. However, in the thirties he returned to painting, although he took a new creative pause that lasted until 1942. In 1944 he held his first solo exhibition, and four years later he approached surrealism, evolving towards pataphysics in 1954. After reading Hans Prinzhorn's "Artistry of the mentally ill", Dubuffet coined the term "art brut" (raw art) for art produced by non-professionals working outside aesthetic norms, such as mental patients, prisoners and children. In fact, the artist sought to create an art free of intellectual concerns, and at times his work appears primitive and childish. Works by Dubuffet are currently held at MoMA, the Guggenheim and the Metropolitan Museum in New York, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Fondation de l'Hermitage in Lausanne, the Fukuoka Museum in Japan, the Kunstmuseum in Basel, the MACBA in Barcelona, the MNCARS in Madrid, the Tate Gallery in London and the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, among others.