Francois Dufrene Biography
François Dufrêne (1930-1982) was initially a poet and joined the Lettrist movement in 1946, remaining active in it until 1964. Meanwhile, he developed a form of phonetic poetry, called ultralettrism, which broke down the structures of language. With Les Crirythmes ultra-lettristes, he explored the vocal possibilities of musique concrète, an artistic expression based on spontaneity and without a score of any kind, recorded directly on the tape recorder. His works, such as “Tombeau de Pierre Larousse or TPL” (1958) and his “Suites” (Hurly Burly-ric Rock, Récitativo all'italiana...), use dictionary words for purely phonetic purposes and exploit the interferences of sound, meaning and nonsense.
In 1950, he befriended Yves Klein, and then in 1954, Raymond Hains and Jacques Villeglé. He began a career as a visual artist. In 1960, he contributed to the founding of the New Realists group with Pierre Restany, Yves Klein, Jean Tinguely, Arman, Hains, Villeglé, Gerard Deschamps, Niki de Saint Phalle and Christo.
In the 1970s, he collaborated with Gil Joseph Wolman on the artists' collective "Jacob ou la persuasion". His taste for wordplay has been reflected in his drawings since 1977. The same year, he produced “Cantate des Mots Camés”, a poem composed of a single parent syllable with very tight constraints, which translates visually into 30 tables of 100×65cm.
In 1983 the exhibition "Pour François Dufrêne" was held, presented by the Polyphonix Association at the Center Pompidou in Paris.
