Dubuffet electrifies Paris: the Opera Gallery pays tribute to L’Hourloupe
To coincide with Paris Art Week, Opéra Gallery is devoting an exceptional exhibition to Jean Dubuffet, a pioneering figure in post-war art. From October 16 to November 12, 2025, the Faubourg Saint-Honoré venue unveils a rare and dense panorama of the L’Hourloupe cycle (1962-1982), through a selection of major works from this mythical corpus.
L’Hourloupe: a radical visual language
Born of spontaneous scribblings in ballpoint pen, L’Hourloupe marked a complete turnaround in Dubuffet’s work. Organic forms, red and blue solids, tight hatching and cut-out black became his new vocabulary. It’s a mental universe entirely dissociated from reality, an inner world at once chaotic and structured.
For over ten years, Dubuffet developed L’Hourloupe to the point of total immersion with Coucou Bazar, presented at the Guggenheim in 1973. The exhibition features Échec à l’être (1971), a monumental “praticable”, a living vestige of this extraordinary stage experience.
A heritage in motion
Opera Gallery continued the legacy until 1982 with the Sites aléatoires, of which Site au défunt marks a key turning point. These figures-ideograms, unanchored to reality, herald a final mutation in the artist’s quest for living, rebellious abstraction.
The exhibition also covers other series such as Coucous Bazar, Psycho-sites, Roman burlesque and Théâtres de mémoire, testifying to the plastic and theoretical richness of this period. Each work is a variation on the theme of visual language as resistance to the norm.
A dialogue between past and present
According to Marion Petitdidier, Director of Opera Gallery Paris:
“Dubuffet’s work reflects the very DNA of Opera Gallery. His radicalism compels us to constantly reconsider the aesthetic canons of the twentieth century.”
This retrospective is part of a fertile dialogue between modern art and contemporary sensibilities, at the heart of a global artistic calendar marked by Art Basel and Paris Art Week.
An appointment not to be missed
Jean Dubuffet, L’Hourloupe et son sillage (1962-1982) is more than a tribute exhibition. It’s an immersion into the mind of an artist who deconstructed academic art to invent a new visual world. Discover it at Opéra Gallery Paris, for a fresh look at one of the 20th century’s most indomitable creators.
📍OpéraGallery – 62, rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, Paris 8e
🗓 October 16 – November 12, 2025
🕙 Monday to Saturday, 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.
More major exhibitions on parisselectbook.com
