“For me, insanity is super sanity. The normal is psychotic. Normal means lack of imagination, lack of creativity.”
—Jean Dubuffet
Filled to its edges with energetic lines in shades of ochre, navy, and coral, Argument XXXIV is part of a series of felt tip pen drawings Dubuffet executed towards the end of his life. The drawing encapsulates his continued love for the gestural shapes of graffiti and the raw expressiveness of what he called art brut: bold creative impulses that would also prove attractive to Dubuffet’s spiritual successor Jean Michel-Basquiat at this time in the 1980s. Basquiat was a known admirer of Dubuffet, and while it is unknown if the two ever formally met, he would often visit Pace Gallery to see what new Dubuffet’s had come in, having first encountered his work at Pace in the 1970s.i Dubuffet’s distinct art brut spirit – exemplified in this late drawing – soon coursed through the veins of many other contemporary artists like Keith Haring and Rashid Johnson, who would incorporate the strong colors, spontaneous gestures, and expressive forms that Dubuffet had championed.
