| Nouveau Realisme - The Concept | | | | Villeglé (born 1926). Later, in and after |
| Hooped mutually in 1960 with the signing of a | | | | 1961, César (French - 1921-98), Mimmo |
| never-before manifesto, promising French | | | | Rotella (Italian - 1918-2006), Niki de Saint Phalle |
| avant-garde artists dreamed to conceptually | | | | (French - 1930-2002), Gérard Deschamps |
| face-lift the existing artistic forms. As a medium, | | | | (French - 1937), and Christo (Bulgarian - born |
| they selected abstraction, betraying the | | | | 1935) joined them. |
| preconception of art, popular during the period. In | | | | The Details |
| an effort to confront reality, Nouveaux Realists | | | | French art critic and cultural philosopher Pierre |
| focused on the human body and day-to-day | | | | Restany (1930-2003) coined the term 'Nouveau |
| commodities, displaying them into conglomerations, | | | | Réalisme' (New Realism) during an early |
| producing action-spectacles and confusing | | | | group exhibition in May 1960. By returning to |
| intricacies, and even destructing them. | | | | "Realism," he was referring to the |
| The History | | | | nineteenth-century artistic and literary movement, |
| This French art movement transformed | | | | which focused to depict ordinary everyday |
| everyday objects and debris into art, on the | | | | Realism, devoid of any idealization. However, |
| belief that the existing painting was incapable of | | | | Nouveau Realism was a novel idea in the sense |
| conveying the reality of the post-war society. | | | | that it associated itself to the new truth and the |
| Initiated by art critic Pierre Restany and the | | | | reality of an urban consumer society. It no longer |
| painter Yves Klein during their first collective | | | | branded with a symbolic image, but depended on |
| exposition in the Apollinaire Gallery in Milan, Italy, | | | | the arrangement of the object the artists |
| this society emphasized the meaning of the real | | | | selected. |
| and the contemporary consumer entity. It was | | | | The Artists |
| comparable to the Pop Art movement in New | | | | The advocates of New Realism displayed a unique |
| York. Pierre Restany wrote the original manifesto | | | | moniker and style to their work, despite the fact |
| for the group and named it the 'Constitutive | | | | that the themes of ruin, spontaneity, and |
| Declaration of New Realism.' Nine French artists | | | | destruction were repeated. Each of the Nouveau |
| signed this joint avowal on October 27, 1960, in | | | | Realists exhibited an impressive genre of their |
| Yves Klein's workshop, marking a formal onset of | | | | movement with their own style. Deschamps finds |
| Nouveau Realisme. The artists were, Yves Klein | | | | previously completed works of art, Tinguely |
| (1928-62), Arman (1928-2005), Francois | | | | fashioned moving sculptures & |
| Dufrêne (1930-82), Raymond Hains | | | | self-destructive machines, César |
| (1926-2005), Martial Raysse (born 1936), Pierre | | | | compressed metal, Sainte-Phalle shot her pieces, |
| Restany (1930-2003), Daniel Spoerri | | | | and Christo favors to dangle the world's blatancy, |
| (Romanian-Swiss - born 1930), Jean Tinguely | | | | re-creating a fresh face for well-known |
| (Swiss - 1925-91), and Jacques de la | | | | monuments by enshrouding them. |