Dubuffet plays hide-and-seek: Lineage, reflexivity, and perception in Coucou Bazar

In the criticism devoted to Jean Dubuffet, his mixed-genre spectacle, or “tableau animé” (animated painting), Coucou Bazar, is frequently cited but only rarely discussed in any detail. The exploration of three related issues—Coucou Bazar's debt to avant-garde theater, dance, and set design; its metapictorial features and its generic reflexivity; its sustained exploration of perception and of the potential of the artwork to effect something akin to a phenomenological reduction—addresses this relative critical dearth and demonstrates that this multimedia venture is in many respects the logical extension of much of Dubuffet's earlier work.