François Dufrêne

François Dufrêne was a French Nouveau Réalisme 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. Dufrêne’s Abstract Poetry has led many to regard him as a member of the first generation sound poets. He joined Isidore Isou and the Lettrist movement in 1946 and continued participating until 1964. In the 1950s, Dufrêne subsequently founded the Ultra-Lettrist movement, along with Jean-Louis Brau and Gil Joseph Wolman, when they split from Isidore Isou’s Lettrism. Dufrêne 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.