Le nouveau réalisme, 1960-2010 (book)

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Le nouveau realisme, 1960-2010 (book) by Restany, Stella, Chiesa and Dachy. Soft cover. 270 pages. Very good condition except very slight stain on the cover page. French/Italian.

New Realism was founded in October 1960 by a joint declaration whose signatories are Yves Klein, Arman, François Dufrêne, Raymond Hains, Martial Raysse, Pierre Restany, Daniel Spoerri, Jean Tinguely, Jacques de la Villeglé; to which are added César, Mimmo Rotella, then Niki de Saint Phalle and Gérard Deschamps in 1961.

These artists claim to have come together on the basis of the awareness of their “collective singularity”. Indeed, in the diversity of their plastic language, they perceive a common place in their work, namely a method of direct appropriation of reality, which is equivalent, to use the terms of Pierre Restany, in a “poetic recycling of urban reality , industrial, advertising”

Their collective work, exhibitions developed together, extends from 1960 to 1963, but the history of New Realism continues at least until 1970, the year of the tenth anniversary of the group marked by the organization of major events.

However, if this awareness of a “collective singularity” is decisive, their grouping is motivated by the intervention and the theoretical contribution of the art critic Pierre Restany, who, first interested in art abstract, turns to the elaboration of a sociological aesthetic after his meeting with Klein in 1958, and largely assumes the theoretical justification of the group.

The term New Realism was coined by Pierre Restany on the occasion of a first collective exhibition in May 1960. By using the term “realism”, it refers to the artistic and literary movement born in the 19th century which intended to describe , without magnifying it, a banal and everyday reality. However, this realism is “new”, just as there is a New Roman or a Cinematographic New Wave: on the one hand, it attaches to a new reality resulting from an urban consumer society, on the other On the other hand, its descriptive mode is also new because it is no longer identified with a representation by the creation of an adequate image, but consists of the presentation of the object that the artist has chosen.

It is also to Pierre Restany that we owe the defense of New Realism on the international scene in the face of the emergence of an American art, Pop Art, supported economically by a network of gallery owners and collectors.

Feel free to check out the additional photos at the top left, thank you!

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