MANNHEIM.- During the summer months, the Kunsthalle Mannheim is presenting the largest exhibition in Germany devoted to Nouveau Réalisme and its international context in more than 15 years. Featuring around 150 works by artists such as Niki de Saint Phalle, Daniel Spoerri, Yves Klein, Christo, Jean Tinguely, Arman, and César, the exhibition offers a comprehensive overview of this movement, which, from the 1960s onwards, transformed reality itself into the material of art.

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The Myth of Nouveau Réalisme

Art and the Performative in Postwar France

A scholarly study of Nouveau Réalisme, postwar French art, performance, mythmaking, and the changing language of the avant-garde.

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AN INTERNATIONAL PHENOMENON

More than 60 years after the signing of the ‘Déclaration constitutive du Nouveau Réalisme’ in Paris on 27 October 1960, the group of artists around the French art critic Pierre Restany appears today more than ever as part of an international artistic phenomenon. Not only artists such as Arman, César, Christo, Yves Klein, Niki de Saint Phalle and Jean Tinguely reacted to the profound social changes of the post-war period with new, radical forms of expression – across Europe, the USA and Latin America, a generation of artists made reality itself the subject and material of their art.

NOUVEAU RÉALISME AND IST CONTEXT

Based on important works from her own collection, the Kunsthalle spans an arc from the emergence of the consumer society from the 1950s to the early 1970s while also exploring the relevance of these artistic positions today. In dialogue with the Nouveaux Réalistes, the exhibition also presents works by artists such as Jasper Johns, Alina Szapocznikow, Tetsumi Kudo, Chryssa and Feliza Bursztyn. Their works show how international and multi-layered the search for new artistic languages was during this period. At the same time, the exhibition critically examines the connections and contrasts between Nouveau Réalisme and Pop Art.

THE CITY

At the heart of new art is the city – a place of constant change, shaped by consumerism, advertising, traffic, and an everincreasing pace of life. The streets become the artists’ repository of materials: While the Affichistes tear down posters from walls and make their torn surfaces visible, other artists collect, accumulate, compress or fix objects of everyday life. Dissolved from their original context, these objects become testimonies of their time: They question the perception of things and make the reality of modern consumer society immediately tangible.





OBJECT, LANGUAGE, BODY, ACTION

In a productive dialogue with Marcel Duchamp, the artists of Nouveau Réalisme and their circle expand the concept of ‘objet trouvé’ as well as the possibilities of language and material. The body becomes a central theme: Klein’s ‘anthropometries’, César’s ‘expansions’ or Szapocznikow’s assembled sculptures reflect the tension-filled relationship between reality and representation. At the same time, art becomes action and spectacle. The destruction of objects – such as the car in Arman’s ‘White Orchid’ – or Niki de Saint Phalle’s shooting actions bridge the gap between art and life. At the same time, they are seen as a political gesture within a changing society.

Featuring paintings, sculptures, installations, and works on paper alongside archival documents, photographs, and video recordings of performances and actions, RADICAL. REALITIES. offers a fresh perspective on the explosive power of Nouveau Réalisme, presenting works whose questions about consumerism, the media, and reality seem more relevant today than ever.