Post-war Everyday Art of "New Realists" Back in Spotlight

Robert Rauschenberg Arman Jasper Johns Christo Yves Klein The Color of Money An Epoch Ends Andy Goes to China

Send a letter to the Editor

Save to Del.icio.us Digg this

From Niki de Saint Phalle's wildly-colored oddly-oversized sculpted women to the first wrapped objects by Christo—who went on to wrap world monuments—the show at the Grand Palais from today through July 2 features 160 works produced in the decade between 1958 to 1969.

"It was one of the first art movements to cross borders," said curator Cecile Debray of the 13 artists in the movement, centered in Paris but in touch with other European countries as well as artists in New York, such as Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg.

"The movement set up the basic trends of contemporary art," Debray told the AFP. "It came after Abstract art and was provocative, like the earlier Dadaists."

Active in the post World War II boom years, the artists who subscribed to New Realism drew their inspiration and drive to renew artistic forms from the thriving consumerism of industrial society.

Using strips of torn posters for example "to show art is produced by everyone," members of the movement, often tongue-in-cheek, claimed to portray "contemporary nature, be it industrial, mechanical or advertising."

Jean Tinguely, for instance, used bits and pieces to make machines that drew pictures. Cesar compressed cars into sculptures before turning to polyurethane to mold a giant breast or a thumb, and Arman smashed a piano to pieces to produce a work called Chopin's Waterloo.

Filming performances staged to show art-in-the-making, Niki de Saint Phalle harked back to memories of incest by shooting at a giant sculpture representing her father in a 1972 film entitled Daddy. Another film shows Yves Klein's naked models rolling in paint in public to imprint a canvas.

Sometimes serious, sometimes light, the New Realists stuffed armless dolls in boxes, assembled rat-traps or teeth, and collected leftover meals and trash in what they said was the archeology of everyday life.

And as plastic objects multiplied and supermarkets mushroomed, members of the movement assembled plastic bottles, brooms and inflated beach-toys to illustrate contemporary life.

"It was also a critique of consumer society," Debray said. "It was important to stage this exhibition to highlight the coherence of the group and illustrate how it expressed an era."