The History of Nouveau Réalisme.

June 13, 2012 - PRLog -- The Nouveau Réalisme art movement, which took place in Europe throughout the 1960s, is often overshadowed by the Pop Art movement which was occurring simultaneously in Britain and especially America.   Like the Pop Artists and their predecessors, the Nouveaux Réalistes’ work is characterized by a rejection of the lyricism of abstract painting in favor of a return to reality.  However, Nouveau Réalisme is more closely related to Dada than to Pop Art.  The Nouveaux Réalistes were influenced by Marcel Duchamp and, accordingly, incorporated pre-existing objects into their art.  This practice, assemblage, was frequently employed by the Nouveaux Réalistes, as were similar artistic methods such as collage.

   The Nouveaux Réalistes further expanded upon the concept of assemblage by manipulating and even destroying objects from the world and using the fragments or remains in their work.  This practice is exemplified in the Nouveau Réalist artist César’s Ricard (1962), in which the artist manipulated the form of a compressed automobile.  César was fascinated by the idea of compression, and the relationship between an item’s proportions and its casing, or skin.  He began to formulate the idea of “manipulated compression” in 1961, which involved choosing the color and character of the materials used, as well as the utilization of his knowledge of the compression process.  César discovered a scrap metal merchant in Gennevilliers who owned an American press, and was able to get the materials for his sculptures and produce them with this press.  Ricard is a product of this “manipulated compression” idea.

   Nouveau Réalisme was officially established in 1960 with the critic Pierre Restany’s manifesto, “The Constitutive Declaration of New Realism.”  The manifesto was signed on October 27th of that year by nine people: Restany, Yves Klein, Arman, Martial Raysse, Francois Dufrêne, Raymond Hains, Jacques de la Villeglé, Daniel Spoerri, and Jean Tinguely & the Ultra-Lettrists.  A significant group exhibition was held at Milan’s Apollinaire Gallery that same month.  Restany wrote a second manifesto, “40° Above Dada”, in mid-1961, which was also signed by César, Nikki de Saint Phalle, Mimmo Rotella, and Gérard Deschamps, marking these artists’ official entry into the movement.  The artist Christo would also join the movement in 1963.  This second document, however, reflected Restany’s belief that Nouveau Réalisme is strongly influenced by a Dadaist heritage.  Yves Klein did not agree and would begin to distance himself from the movement in 1961, before his premature death in 1962.

   The work of the Nouveaux Réalistes was exhibited together at the Parisian Festival d’avant garde in November of 1960, and also at the Gallery J. in Paris in early 1961.  Significantly, the Sidney Janis Gallery in New York exhibited the International Exhibition of the New Realists, which juxtaposed the work of the Nouveaux Réalistes with that of the American Pop artists, in late 1962.  However, the San Marco Biennale of 1963 was the last group show of the Nouveaux Réalistes’ work.  Klein’s death in 1962 had marked the beginning of the group’s dissolution, and the movement was officially ended by 1970.

Find more information at www.vickydavid.com