“We will open with a Dubuffet-inspired spectacle that will introduce audiences to the remarkable creative world of the honoree through an evocation of his theatrical-painting ‘ballet’ Coucou Bazar, which will bring to life Dubuffet’s idea of the artist’s ability to blur the boundary between art and life. Contemporary Olomouc artist Eva Janovská-Šemberová contributed to the creation of the elaborate costume, and the musical accompaniment will feature excerpts from recordings of Jean Dubuffet’s original compositions,” says Pavel Konečný, founder and dramaturg of the Art Brut Film festival.

The renowned Collection de L’Art Brut, a collection of raw art by French painter and collector Jean Dubuffet in Lausanne, Switzerland, celebrates the 50th anniversary of its opening this February. That is why this year’s 15th edition of the Art Brut Film Olomouc film festival, with its diverse and distinctive program, commemorates the 125th anniversary of Dubuffet’s birth. In addition, it highlights traces of his influence on the lives and works of two Czech cultural figures: film director Jaroslav Vízner and painter František Chaun. Audiences will thus have the opportunity to see the Czech premiere of Vízner’s 1975 film “L’Art Brut.”

Jean Dubuffet (1901–1985) was a pioneering figure in the history of modern art during the second half of the 20th century. He coined the term “art brut.” A French draftsman, painter, sculptor, architect, and musician, he decided in his forties to abandon his career as a wine merchant and devote himself exclusively to art. Through his work and the theory of art brut, he emphatically rejected established concepts of beauty and ugliness and began to explore the art world in opposition to the movements and principles that typically defined it. After the end of World War II, he became a fierce critic of institutions, rejected the established order in the cultural sphere, and created a universal creative language—spontaneous art requiring no instructions but springing from pure inner joy, the authenticity of one’s own feelings and imaginations. From his own provocative artistic work, we focus on the performance Coucou Bazar and the L’Hourlope series, which create a shifting figurative landscape, drawing the viewer into an uncertain, unstable surrounding world.

In his book *Suffocating Culture*, he condemned “the dominance of social order in the cultural sphere.” “The influence of Jean Dubuffet’s dynamic personality and his approach to art had an international character and also affected two Czech artists who were in direct personal contact with him during his lifetime. This year’s edition of the festival will also be dedicated to them,” says Pavel Konečný, collector and programmer at Art Brut Film Olomouc.

Jaroslav Vízner (1937–2022), a Czech actor, director, and documentary filmmaker living in Switzerland (brother of actor Oldřich Vízner). In 1956, he graduated from the College of Engineering with a degree in shipbuilding. From 1958, he served as a production and directing assistant at the Prague Documentary Film Studio, and in the same year he was accepted into the Semafor Theater, later performing at several regional theaters in Uherské Hradiště, Český Těšín, and Kladno. In 1962, director Jan Grossman recruited him for Prague’s Divadlo Na zábradlí, and he also appeared in several Czech films. In November 1968, he emigrated to Switzerland, where he met Jean-Jacques Demartin, the program director of Geneva’s TSR television station, and was accepted for an internship in directing. He then worked there as a director until 2000. He was also appointed professor at the ESAD School of Dramatic Arts in Geneva, and in addition, he worked as an actor and director in French theaters.

In 2001, he returned to the Czech Republic and spent his final years in the Kokořín region, where he died in 2022. Among his extensive filmography (more than 25 artistic documentaries for Swiss television RTS), the outstanding work is the superb medium-length color film *L’Art Brut*, which director Jaroslav Vízner shot together with Guy de Belleval for the television program Clés du in 1975 and was first screened in connection with the grand opening of the Collection de L’Art Brut exhibition in Lausanne to the public on February 26, 1976. “In it, he personally interviewed Jean Dubuffet and other supporters of art brut, such as writer André Pierye de Mardiargues, philosopher and literary figure Gaëtan Picon, and the new curator of his collection, the then-young museum curator Michel Thévoz, who went on to oversee the collection until 2001,” adds Konečný. With this film, director Jaroslav Vízner offers viewers a unique opportunity to travel back in time 50 years, to when Dubuffet’s collection (approximately 5,000 works) was physically transported from Paris (which had refused to exhibit it) to the Swiss Château de Beaulie. It was precisely in these spaces, amidst crates of artifacts still waiting to be unpacked, that the filming of a substantial portion of the film took place. Over time, the film has thus acquired the value of a rare historical document, further enhanced by inspiring interviews with Dubuffet. After all, the first question Jaroslav Vízner asked him in the film remains relevant and vivid to this day: “What criteria do you use to determine whether a drawing or sculpture is the work of an art brut artist—is it something special?”

The Czech premiere of Vízner’s Swiss film will be followed by a montage of several archival films dedicated to the life, creative endeavors, and collecting activities of Jean Dubuffet, as well as his relationships and collaborations with some of the artists in his collection, such as the painter and designer Gaston Chaissac.

František Chaun (1921–1981), painter, composer, pianist, prankster, and actor. “He collaborated with Dubuffet on several projects; they were bound by a long-standing friendship based on similar spiritual and artistic orientations,” describes Konečný.

After completing his secondary education in Louny, he studied pharmacy, but devoted his entire life to artistic pursuits. He studied music privately with Jindřich Feld and Klement Slavický, but, as with all his other activities, he approached it as a self-taught artist. His compositional output is not particularly extensive, comprising around thirty compositions. Particularly noteworthy is his Kafka-inspired trilogy for orchestra: The Metamorphosis, The Castle, and The Trial, composed between 1964 and 1969. He also created several compositions for tape, which he realized at the Acousti studio in Paris.

As a painter, he created hundreds of works, largely influenced by Jean Dubuffet’s artistic views. From the late 1960s onward, they exchanged letters, and eventually met in person. Dubuffet, twenty years his senior, must have been appealing to the like-minded Chaun in many ways, particularly in his unconventionality, his penchant for spontaneity, his conception of art brut, a kind of total playfulness, or, at other times, his approach to expressing serious themes. Jean Dubuffet even became the dedicatee of one of Chaun’s musical compositions—the double concerto for violin, cello, and chamber orchestra *Hommage à Dubuffet* from 1970.   

The final part of the exhibition will feature a presentation by Dr. Jiří Hnilica, emeritus director of the Czech Center in Paris and an expert on French art brut, who has long devoted his research to the history of Czech-French relations. In his talk, he will explore the context of the friendship and artistic collaboration between J. Dubuffet and F. Chaun in the fields of music, theater, and art brut painting.

PROGRAM Art Brut Film Olomouc 2026

• 6:00 PM Opening
• 6:05 PM – 6:15 PM   Evocation: Coucou Bazar, a reverie for a single costume, 2026
• 6:15 PM – 6:05 PM   Film “L’Art Brut,” dir. Jaroslav Vízner, 1975
• 7:06 PM – 7:13 PM   Film “Ostinato de Gaston Chaissac,” dir. Patric Guillot, 2014
• 7:14 PM – 7:19 PM   Film “Gaston Chaissac, Singulier de l’art,” dir. Julien Mineraud, 2019
• 7:20 PM – 7:30 PM   “Barbar Dubuffet,” a compilation of short films about J. Dubuffet
• 7:30 PM – 8:00 PM   “Jean Dubuffet, František Chaun, and Art Brut,” a presentation by Jiří Hnilica

This year’s Art Brut Film Olomouc festival is part of the Olomouc Eco Days 2026