A trip to the Collection De L'Art Brut

Last week we spent a few hours at Lausanne's Collection De L'Art Brut, which is a museum that houses works of art created by society's outsiders. These artists are untrained and mostly do not adhere to conventional practices for making their art, they create merely to create. So cool, right!  In the 1940's a french man, Jean Dubuffet began collecting art from prisoners, people in mental institutions, and from people who merely just chose not to conform to the artistic circles of the day. 

Today, there are hundreds of pieces situated on four floors and the show that we saw focused on architecture. We saw everything from children's drawings of colorful flat houses, to models and floorpans of structures throughout time. I was particularly captivated by a drawing of famous structures throughout the world. It was really fun to watch Quinn's reaction to the framed children's drawings, I could almost see a little light come on inside his head when he realized that the art hanging this big museum was made by little people!

As we climbed the stairs to each new floor the kids were really truly giddy about what they were seeing. Naturally, Anna wanted to touch everything so we had to keep a bit of a firm hand on her, but as always she is quick to follow Quinn's lead and both kids spent some serious time playing "I Spy" with a couple of three dimensional works made entirely of painted shells. On a side note,  I could kiss whoever made up that I Spy game, it has seriously saved us so many times!

While this museum was the perfect space and content for Kevin and my tastes, I think the after party at the playground next door was the most fun for the kids. They had a blast on the play structures while the adults stood around and ate all the kid snacks, yay gummy bears!