Pierre Restany (1998) by Erling Mandelmann

Pierre Restany (24 June 1930 – 29 May 2003), was an internationally known French art critic and cultural

philosopher A philosopher is a person who practices or investigates philosophy. The term ''philosopher'' comes from the grc, φιλόσοφος, , translit=philosophos, meaning 'lover of wisdom'. The coining of the term has been attributed to the Greek th ...

. 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).

Conceptions of New Realism / Nouveau Realisme

In 1960 Pierre Restany created the idea and coined the term Nouveau Réalisme with Yves Klein during a group show in the Apollinaire gallery in

Milan Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city ...

. 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 Fluxus was an international, interdisciplinary community of artists, composers, designers and poets during the 1960s and 1970s who engaged in experimental art performances which emphasized the artistic process over the finished product. Fluxus ...

and Pop Art. The group included Martial Raysse,

Arman Arman (November 17, 1928 – October 22, 2005) was a French-born American artist. Born Armand Fernandez in Nice, France, Arman was a painter who moved from using objects for the ink or paint traces they leave (''cachets'', ''allures d'objet'') to ...

, Yves Klein,

François Dufrene Francois Dufrene (François Dufrêne) (born Paris, 21 September 1930; died Paris, 12 December 1982) was a French Nouveau realist visual artist, Lettrist and Ultra-Lettrist poet. He is primarily known as a pioneer in sound poetry and for his us ...

, Raymond Hains, Daniel Spoerri, Jean Tinguely,

Jacques Villeglé Jacques Villeglé, born Jacques Mahé de la Villeglé (27 March 1926 – 6 June 2022) was a French mixed-media artist and affichiste famous for his alphabet with symbolic letters and decollage with ripped or lacerated posters. He was a member ...

- and was later joined by César,

Mimmo Rotella Domenico "Mimmo" Rotella (Catanzaro, 7 October 1918 – Milan, 8 January 2006) was an Italian artist considered an important figure in post-war European art. Best known for his works of décollage and psychogeographics, made from torn adver ...

, 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. In 1961 he co-founded with Jeannine de Goldschmidt the Galerie J in Paris. In 1963, Restany edited the art and architectural magazine Domus and divided his time between Montparnasse, Paris and

, eventually becoming a regular contributor to the magazine until 2003. In 1969 he was one of the curators of the

São Paulo Biennial SAO or Sao may refer to: Places * Sao civilisation, in Middle Africa from 6th century BC to 16th century AD * Sao, a town in Boussé Department, Burkina Faso * Saco Transportation Center (station code SAO), a train station in Saco, Maine, U. ...

. In the early 1970s he took interest in the work of the Sociological art collective. In 1976, Pierre Restany curated the French pavilion at the

Venice Biennale The Venice Biennale (; it, La Biennale di Venezia) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy by the Biennale Foundation. The biennale has been organised every year since 1895, which makes it the oldest of ...

and organised a group exhibition bringing together the Collectif d'Art Sociologique (Hervé Fischer, Fred Forest and Jean-Paul Thénot), Raymond Hains,

Alain Jacquet Alain Jacquet (22 February 1939 – 4 September 2008) was a French artist representative of the Nouvelle Figuration movement that was linked to the American Pop Art movement. Life and career Jacquet was born in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France. Tho ...

, Bertrand Lavier, Jean-Pierre Raynaud and Jean-Michel Sanejouand. In 1982 he co-founded the Domus Academy, the first postgraduate design school in Milan. 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 Digital art refers to any artistic work or practice that uses digital technology as part of the creative or presentation process, or more specifically computational art that uses and engages with digital media. Since the 1960s, various name ...

and the World Wide Web. In 1984 he was appointed the editor of the visual art magazine ''D'Ars''. In 1992, he curated the travelling exhibition ''Art & Tabac'' (Rome, Vienna and Amsterdam) and in 1994 he co-curated with

Robert C. Morgan Robert C. Morgan (born 1943) is an American art critic, art historian, curator, poet, and artist. Biography Robert C. Morgan received his M.F.A. in sculpture from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst in 1975 and his Ph.D. in art education ...

the exhibition ''Logo, Non Logo'' held at Thread Waxing Space in New York City. In 1999 he was nominated President of the Palais de Tokyo in Paris. Restany died in Paris in 2003 and is buried in the Montparnasse Cemetery.

Bibliography

* Pierre Restany. ''Manifeste des Nouveaux Réalistes''
Editions Dilecta
Paris, 2007. * Pierre Restany. ''Voyages de Ginzburg'', Editions Julien Blaine, Paris, France, 1980. * Pierre Restany. ''La vie este belle, n’est-ce-pas, cher Vostell''.

Wolf Vostell Wolf Vostell (14 October 1932 – 3 April 1998) was a German painter and sculptor, considered one of the early adopters of video art and installation art and pioneer of Happenings and Fluxus. Techniques such as blurring and Dé-coll/age are ...

, Galerie Lavignes Bastille, Paris, 1990.
Text about

* Pierre Restany. '' Bernard Childs, un language de notre temps''. Art International, Vol. III, 1959.

References

Sources

* Kristine Stiles & Peter Selz, ''Theories and Documents of Contemporary Art: A Sourcebook of Artists' Writings'' (Second Edition, Revised and Expanded by Kristine Stiles) University of California Press 2012, Pierre Restany texts pp. 352–355

External links

* Geneviève Breerette, �
Pierre Restany, critique d'art
», ''Le Monde'', 30 mai 2003

sur le site des Éditions La Différence

essay from the Centre Pompidou {{DEFAULTSORT:Restany, Pierre 1930 births 2003 deaths People from Pyrénées-Orientales French art critics French art historians Cultural historians Mass media theorists Nouveau réalisme artists Burials at Montparnasse Cemetery Lycée Henri-IV alumni French male non-fiction writers French art curators 20th-century French male writers

Conceptions of New Realism / Nouveau Realisme

See also

Bibliography

References

Sources

External links