Pierre Restany
Encyclopedia
Pierre Restany was an internationally known French art critic
and cultural philosopher.
Restany was born in Amélie-les-Bains-Palalda
, Pyrénées-Orientales
, and spent his childhood in Casablanca
. On returning to France in 1949 he attended the Lycée Henri-IV before studying at universities in France, Italy and Ireland. From their first meeting in 1955, Restany maintained a strong tie with Yves Klein
(to whom is attributed Klein-blue
).
during a group show in the Apollinaire gallery in Milan
. It was an idea that united a group of French and Italian artists. Nouveau Realisme was the European answer to the American Neo-Dada
of Fluxus
and Pop Art
. The group included Martial Raysse
, Arman
, Yves Klein
, François Dufrêne, Raymond Hains
, Daniel Spoerri
, Jean Tinguely
, Jacques Villeglé
- and was later joined by César
, Mimmo Rotella
, Niki de Saint Phalle
and Christo.
Restany defined this group of artists as sharing "new perceptual approaches to reality". The first exhibition of the "Nouveaux réalistes" took place in November 1960 at the Paris Festival d'avant-garde. Their work was an attempt at reassessing the concept of art and the artist in the context of 20th-century consumer society by reasserting humanistic ideals
in the face of industrial
expansion.
From 1963 onwards, Restany edited the art and architectural magazine Domus
and divided his time between Montparnasse
, Paris and Milan
, Italy. In the early 1970s he took interest in the work of the Sociological art collective
. In 1982 he co-founded Domus Academy, the first postgraduate design school. From the early 1990s up to his death, Restany took a keen and growing interest in artists working in the areas of computer art
, new media art
, digital art
and the world wide web
. In 1992, he was director of the group show Art & Tabac, in Rome, Vienna and Amsterdam.
He also developed his thought on nature and chaos with artist Carlos Ginzburg
, a collaboration that resulted in Political Ecology, an exhibition Restany curated in New York, in 2001.
Pierre Restany died in Paris in 2003 and is buried in the Montparnasse Cemetery
.
Art critic
An art critic is a person who specializes in evaluating art. Their written critiques, or reviews, are published in newspapers, magazines, books and on web sites...
and cultural philosopher.
Restany was born in Amélie-les-Bains-Palalda
Amélie-les-Bains-Palalda
Amélie-les-Bains-Palalda is a commune in the Pyrénées-Orientales department in southern France.It is situated in the Tech valley, and combines the old and the new with a mix of narrow cobbled streets and modern accommodation...
, Pyrénées-Orientales
Pyrénées-Orientales
Pyrénées-Orientales is a department of southern France adjacent to the northern Spanish frontier and the Mediterranean Sea. It also surrounds the tiny Spanish enclave of Llívia, and thus has two distinct borders with Spain.- History :...
, and spent his childhood in Casablanca
Casablanca
Casablanca is a city in western Morocco, located on the Atlantic Ocean. It is the capital of the Grand Casablanca region.Casablanca is Morocco's largest city as well as its chief port. It is also the biggest city in the Maghreb. The 2004 census recorded a population of 2,949,805 in the prefecture...
. On returning to France in 1949 he attended the Lycée Henri-IV before studying at universities in France, Italy and Ireland. From their first meeting in 1955, Restany maintained a strong tie with Yves Klein
Yves Klein
Yves Klein was a French artist considered an important figure in post-war European art. He is the leading member of the French artistic movement of Nouveau réalisme founded in 1960 by the art critic Pierre Restany...
(to whom is attributed Klein-blue
International Klein Blue
International Klein Blue is a deep blue hue first mixed by the French artist Yves Klein. IKB's visual impact comes from its heavy reliance on Ultramarine, as well as Klein's often thick and textured application of paint to canvas.- History :...
).
Conceptions of New Realism / Nouveau Realisme
In 1960 Pierre Restany created the idea and coined the term "Nouveau Réalisme" with Yves KleinYves Klein
Yves Klein was a French artist considered an important figure in post-war European art. He is the leading member of the French artistic movement of Nouveau réalisme founded in 1960 by the art critic Pierre Restany...
during a group show in the Apollinaire gallery in Milan
Milan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...
. It was an idea that united a group of French and Italian artists. Nouveau Realisme was the European answer to the American Neo-Dada
Neo-Dada
Neo-Dada is a label applied primarily to audio and visual art that has similarities in method or intent to earlier Dada artwork. It is the foundation of Fluxus, Pop Art and Nouveau réalisme. Neo-Dada is exemplified by its use of modern materials, popular imagery, and absurdist contrast...
of Fluxus
Fluxus
Fluxus—a name taken from a Latin word meaning "to flow"—is an international network of artists, composers and designers noted for blending different artistic media and disciplines in the 1960s. They have been active in Neo-Dada noise music and visual art as well as literature, urban planning,...
and Pop Art
Pop art
Pop art is an art movement that emerged in the mid 1950s in Britain and in the late 1950s in the United States. Pop art challenged tradition by asserting that an artist's use of the mass-produced visual commodities of popular culture is contiguous with the perspective of fine art...
. The group included Martial Raysse
Martial Raysse
Martial Raysse is a French artist born in Golfe-Juan on 12 February 1936. He lives in Issigeac - France.-Biography: Raysse was born in a ceramicist family in Vallauris and began to paint and write poetry at age 12. After studying and practising athleticism at a high level, he began to accumulate...
, Arman
Arman
Arman was a French-born American artist. Born Armand Pierre Fernandez in Nice, France, Arman is a painter who moved from using the objects as paintbrushes to using them as the painting itself...
, Yves Klein
Yves Klein
Yves Klein was a French artist considered an important figure in post-war European art. He is the leading member of the French artistic movement of Nouveau réalisme founded in 1960 by the art critic Pierre Restany...
, François Dufrêne, Raymond Hains
Raymond Hains
Raymond Hains was a French artist and photographer.-Biography:In 1945, Hains briefly enrolled in the sculpture course at the École des Beaux-Arts, Rennes and met Jacques de la Villeglé that same year. He then collaborated with E. Sougez as a photographer for France-Illustration...
, Daniel Spoerri
Daniel Spoerri
Daniel Spoerri is a Swiss artist and writer born in Romania, who has been called "the central figure of European post-war art" and "one of the most renown[ed] [artists] of the 20th century." Spoerri is best known for his "snare-pictures," a type of assemblage or object art, in which he captures...
, Jean Tinguely
Jean Tinguely
Jean Tinguely was a Swiss painter and sculptor. He is best known for his sculptural machines or kinetic art, in the Dada tradition; known officially as metamechanics...
, Jacques Villeglé
Jacques Villeglé
Jacques Villeglé, born Jacques Mahé de la Villeglé is a French mixed-media artist and affichiste famous for his alphabet with symbolic letters and decollage with ripped or lacerated posters...
- and was later joined by César
César Baldaccini
César Baldaccini , usually called César was a noted French sculptor.César was at the forefront of the Nouveau Réalisme movement with his radical compressions , expansions , and fantastic representations of animals and insects.- Biography :He...
, Mimmo Rotella
Mimmo Rotella
Domenico "Mimmo" Rotella, , was an Italian artist and poet best known for his works of décollage and psychogeographics, made from torn advertising posters.Rotella was born in Catanzaro, Calabria....
, Niki de Saint Phalle
Niki de Saint Phalle
Niki de Saint Phalle, born Catherine-Marie-Agnès-Brandon Fal de Saint Phalle was a French sculptor, painter, and film maker.-The early years:...
and Christo.
Restany defined this group of artists as sharing "new perceptual approaches to reality". The first exhibition of the "Nouveaux réalistes" took place in November 1960 at the Paris Festival d'avant-garde. Their work was an attempt at reassessing the concept of art and the artist in the context of 20th-century consumer society by reasserting humanistic ideals
Ideal (ethics)
An ideal is a principle or value that one actively pursues as a goal. Ideals are particularly important in ethics, as the order in which one places them tends to determine the degree to which one reveals them as real and sincere. It is the application, in ethics, of a universal...
in the face of industrial
Industry
Industry refers to the production of an economic good or service within an economy.-Industrial sectors:There are four key industrial economic sectors: the primary sector, largely raw material extraction industries such as mining and farming; the secondary sector, involving refining, construction,...
expansion.
From 1963 onwards, Restany edited the art and architectural magazine Domus
Domus (magazine)
Domus is the name of two magazines, one published in Italy and one in the United States.* Domus is an Italian magazine, first published in 1928, which focuses on design and architecture. It is bilingual, with articles printed in both Italian and English....
and divided his time between Montparnasse
Montparnasse
Montparnasse is an area of Paris, France, on the left bank of the river Seine, centred at the crossroads of the Boulevard du Montparnasse and the Rue de Rennes, between the Rue de Rennes and boulevard Raspail...
, Paris and Milan
Milan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...
, Italy. In the early 1970s he took interest in the work of the Sociological art collective
Sociological art
Sociological Art is an artistic movement and approach to aesthetics created by Fred Forest, Hervé Fischer and Jean-Paul Thénot in 1974.-From 1967 to 1974:As of 1967 Fred Forest began a series of actions that would foreground the Sociological Art movement...
. In 1982 he co-founded Domus Academy, the first postgraduate design school. From the early 1990s up to his death, Restany took a keen and growing interest in artists working in the areas of computer art
Computer art
Computer art is any art in which computers play a role in production or display of the artwork. Such art can be an image, sound, animation, video, CD-ROM, DVD-ROM, videogame, web site, algorithm, performance or gallery installation...
, new media art
New media art
New media art is a genre that encompasses artworks created with new media technologies, including digital art, computer graphics, computer animation, virtual art, Internet art, interactive art, computer robotics, and art as biotechnology...
, digital art
Digital art
Digital art is a general term for a range of artistic works and practices that use digital technology as an essential part of the creative and/or presentation process...
and the world wide web
World Wide Web
The World Wide Web is a system of interlinked hypertext documents accessed via the Internet...
. In 1992, he was director of the group show Art & Tabac, in Rome, Vienna and Amsterdam.
He also developed his thought on nature and chaos with artist Carlos Ginzburg
Carlos Ginzburg
Carlos Ginzburg is a conceptual artist and theoretician born in 1946 in La Plata, Argentina. He studied philosophy and social theory.-Biography:Germano Celant, when writing about Arte Povera, invited Ginzburg by letter to join his movement....
, a collaboration that resulted in Political Ecology, an exhibition Restany curated in New York, in 2001.
Pierre Restany died in Paris in 2003 and is buried in the Montparnasse Cemetery
Montparnasse Cemetery
Montparnasse Cemetery is a cemetery in the Montparnasse quarter of Paris, part of the city's 14th arrondissement.-History:Created from three farms in 1824, the cemetery at Montparnasse was originally known as Le Cimetière du Sud. Cemeteries had been banned from Paris since the closure, owing to...
.
See also
- DécollageDécollageDécollage, in art, is the opposite of collage; instead of an image being built up of all or parts of existing images, it is created by cutting, tearing away or otherwise removing, pieces of an original image. Examples include inimage or etrécissements and excavations...
- Ultra-LettristUltra-LettristThe Ultra-Lettrist movement was an art form developed by Jean-Louis Brau, Gil J Wolman, and Francois Dufrêne, in the 1950's, when they split from Isidore Isou's Lettrism....
- CésarCésar BaldacciniCésar Baldaccini , usually called César was a noted French sculptor.César was at the forefront of the Nouveau Réalisme movement with his radical compressions , expansions , and fantastic representations of animals and insects.- Biography :He...
- Mimmo RotellaMimmo RotellaDomenico "Mimmo" Rotella, , was an Italian artist and poet best known for his works of décollage and psychogeographics, made from torn advertising posters.Rotella was born in Catanzaro, Calabria....
- Niki de Saint PhalleNiki de Saint PhalleNiki de Saint Phalle, born Catherine-Marie-Agnès-Brandon Fal de Saint Phalle was a French sculptor, painter, and film maker.-The early years:...
- Christo
- Yves KleinYves KleinYves Klein was a French artist considered an important figure in post-war European art. He is the leading member of the French artistic movement of Nouveau réalisme founded in 1960 by the art critic Pierre Restany...
- Carlos GinzburgCarlos GinzburgCarlos Ginzburg is a conceptual artist and theoretician born in 1946 in La Plata, Argentina. He studied philosophy and social theory.-Biography:Germano Celant, when writing about Arte Povera, invited Ginzburg by letter to join his movement....
- Laurence GartelLaurence GartelLaurence Gartel is an American artist.His work has been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, USA, Joan Whitney Payson Museum, Long Beach Museum of Art, Princeton Art Museum, PS 1, Norton Museum and in the permanent collections of the Smithsonian Institution's Museum of American History and the...
External links
- Geneviève Breerette, « Pierre Restany, critique d'art », Le Monde, 30 mai 2003
- Fiche sur le site des Éditions La Différence
- New Realism essay from the Centre Pompidou