Group Nouveaux Réalistes

The French Nouveau Réalisme group is synonymous with the Nouveaux Réalistes, a Parisian artists’ group. The group’s first manifesto was published on 16th April 1960, by Pierre Restany (1930-2003), who became its theorist. On 27th October of the same year, Jahres Arman, François Dufrêne, Raymond Hains, Yves Klein, Martial Raysse, Pierre Restany, Daniel Spoerri, Jean Tinguely and Jacques Mahé de La Villeglé met in Yves Klein’s apartment, to sign the Nouveaux Réalistes’ declaration. Other artists later joined the group, including César, Niki de Saint Phalle and Gérard Deschamps.
The Nouveaux Réalistes rejected abstract gestural forms of expression, and their work was characterised by the integration of everyday - frequently found – objects. The artists’ theoretical beliefs were successfully implemented in the work of object artist Arman (1928-2005). The artist collected false teeth, razors, and gas masks and arranged them in an artistic context, or took his contemporaries’ rubbish turned it into an artwork ("Poubelles").
Daniel Spoerri (born 1930) visualised the interaction between art and life in his "Snare Pictures" (tableau-piège). One particular form of Action art was the Actions-Spectacles (christened by Pierre Restany), which were intended to produce a spontaneous collaboration with the audience. In contrast with Happenings, they ultimately resulted in an artwork. One example was the Anthropométries de l'époque bleue (1960), a work from Yves Klein (1928-1962), in which "living paintbrushes" – women - were painted blue and left traces of their bodies on a canvas.