The Ultra-Lettrist art movement was developed by Jean-Louis Brau,

Gil J. Wolman Gil Joseph Wolman (7 September 1929, Paris – 3 July 1995, Paris) was a French artist. His work encompassed painting, poetry and film-making. He was a member of Isidore Isou's avant garde Letterist movement in the early 1950s, then becoming a cen ...

, and

François Dufrêne François () is a French masculine given name and surname, equivalent to the English name Francis. People with the given name * Francis I of France, King of France (), known as "the Father and Restorer of Letters" * Francis II of France, Kin ...

in the 1950s when they split from

Isidore Isou Isidore Isou (; 29 January 1925 – 28 July 2007), born Isidor Goldstein, was a Romanian-born French poet, dramaturge, novelist, film director, economist, and visual artist who lived in the 20th century. He was the founder of Lettrism, an art ...

Lettrism Lettrism is a French avant-garde movement, established in Paris in the mid-1940s by Romanian immigrant Isidore Isou. In a body of work totaling hundreds of volumes, Isou and the Lettrists have applied their theories to all areas of art and culture ...

movement. Dufrêne created a

phonetic Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that studies how humans produce and perceive sounds, or in the case of sign languages, the equivalent aspects of sign. Linguists who specialize in studying the physical properties of speech are phoneticians. ...

poetry movement which breaks the structures of language that he called Ultra-Lettrist. The Ultra-Lettrist movement grew into an art form as it was developed by Dufrêne, Brau and Wolman. The Ultra-Lettrists explored the vocal possibilities of

concrete music Concrete is a composite material composed of fine and coarse aggregate bonded together with a fluid cement (cement paste) that hardens (cures) over time. Concrete is the second-most-used substance in the world after water, and is the most wi ...

: a form of artistic expression based on spontaneity directly recorded onto tape by exploiting the

noise music Noise music is a genre of music that is characterised by the expressive use of noise within a musical context. This type of music tends to challenge the distinction that is made in conventional musical practices between musical and non-musical ...

qualities of sound, meaning, and

nonsense Nonsense is a communication, via speech, writing, or any other symbolic system, that lacks any coherent meaning. Sometimes in ordinary usage, nonsense is synonymous with absurdity or the ridiculous To be ridiculous is to be something which is ...

. Visual conceptual artists

Raymond Hains Raymond Hains (9 November 1926 – 28 October 2005) was a prominent French visual artist and a founder of the Nouveau réalisme movement. In 1960, he signed, along with Arman, François Dufrêne, Yves Klein, Jean Tinguely, Jacques Villeg ...

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 membe ...

and

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 advert ...

also participated in the Ultra-Lettrist movement. The Ultra-Lettrists issued a periodical called ''grammeS: Review of the Ultra-Lettriste Group'', which ran for seven issues between 1957 and 1961. They used this journal to publish their

hypergraphics Hypergraphy, also called hypergraphics or metagraphics, is an experimental form of visual communication developed by the Lettrist movement. Hypergraphy abandons the phonetic values communicated by most conventional written languages in favor of ...

, exchanges and discussions with the Lettrists' ''Poésie Nouvelle'' and with the

Situationist International The Situationist International (SI) was an international organization of social revolutionaries made up of avant-garde artists, intellectuals, and political theorists. It was prominent in Europe from its formation in 1957 to its dissolution ...

members. Some Ultra-Lettrists went on to form and join the

Nouveau réalisme Nouveau réalisme (French: new realism) refers to an artistic movement founded in 1960 by the art critic Pierre Restany and the painter Yves Klein during the first collective exposition in the Apollinaire gallery in Milan. Pierre Restany wrot ...

movement, while others joined the

.Craig J. Saper (2001) ''Networked art''
pp 112 U of Minnesota Press Retrieved 2010, May 17

References

{{reflist Nouveau réalisme Contemporary art movements Situationist International