HONG KONG.- Le French May Arts Festival presents this year’s highlight exhibition – School of Nice – From Pop Art to Happenings, bringing masterpieces documenting the last major art movements in post-war France and illustrating the city’s remarkable contribution to the history of art in the 1960-70s from the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MAMAC) in Nice. The exhibition being the opening programme of Le French May 2018 is exclusively sponsored by The Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust.

The exhibition features over 100 art pieces from MAMAC including paintings, photographs, sculptures and objects, demonstrating artists in Nice, who were driven to extend their creativity into the artistic new realms and found New Realism, Fluxus, happenings and Pop Art such art movements. This show revisits these key moments in the history of art and contributes to a new appreciation of post-war art in France.

The artists featured in the exhibition such as Yves Klein, Arman and César were instantly identified as pioneers, quickly becoming highly influential, and they were granted solo shows in major galleries in New York and Los Angeles. The MAMAC collection is unique in France, only second to the Centre Pompidou, which actually opened in 1977 in Paris with an exhibition featuring these key artists.

The School(s) of Nice created its own version of Pop Art – even more radical and daring than in America. Artists in Nice are acclaimed as trailblazers in the international Pop Art movement. Martial Raysse and Arman preceded Andy Warhol and James Rosenquist in their use of consumer goods such as musical instruments or boxes of washing powder and in their fascination with the entertainment industry, including mass tourism. The sculptures of César and the wooden panels of Gilli are among the most iconic images of French Pop Art.

MAMAC is a museum dedicated to modern and contemporary art located in Nice. The museum, opened in 1990, is housed in a post-modern building, designed by French architects Yves Bayard and Henri Vidal. The collection presents mostly post-war works by French and international artists, with a special attention to Pop Art and New Realism, and includes paintings, photographs, sculptures, and installations. Artists represented in the collection include Arman, Keith Haring, Yves Klein, Roy Lichenstein, Niki de Saint Phalle, and Andy Warhol, among others.