François Dufrêne

Francois Dufrene (François Dufrêne) (born Paris, September 21, 1930 - died Paris, December 12, 1982) was a French Nouveau realist visual artist, Lettrist and Ultra-Lettrist poet. He is primarily known as a pioneer in sound poetry and for his use of décollage within Nouveau réalisme.

Dufrene, along with Gil J Wolman and Brion Gysin, was one of the stalwarts of the experimental poetry in France. Dufrene's abstract poetry has led many to regard him as a member of the first generation sound poets - following in the footsteps of Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, Richard Huelsenbeck, Hugo Ball, Tristan Tzara, Kurt Schwitters and Antonin Artaud (among others).

Francois Dufrene joined Isidore Isou and the Lettrist movement in 1946 and continued to participate until 1964. Dufrene's talent was evident in the fact that he was already a member of the Lettrist Group at only 16 years old.

Dufrene then created a phonetic poetry which breaks the structures of language he called Ultra-Lettrist. The Ultra-Lettrist movement was an art form developed by Dufrene along with Jean-Louis Brau and Gil J Wolman in the 1950s, when they split from Isidore Isou's Lettrism. Dufrene explored vocal possibilities of concrete music, a form of expression based on spontaneity directly recorded to tape, exploiting the noise music of sound, meaning and nonsense.

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