The Myth of Nouveau Realisme: Art and the Performative in Postwar France

New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2013. Pictorial boards, ix, 198 pages, illustrations (some colour); 24 cm. Firm binding, clean inside copy. "On October 27, 1960, art critic Pierre Restany named a group of Paris-based artists the 'Nouveaux R alistes' (New Realists) in a founding declaration that stated, 'The New Realists recognize their collective singularity. New Realism = new perceptual approaches of the real.' Besides Restany, this group included Arman, Fran ois Dufr ne, Raymond Hains, Yves Klein, Martial Raysse, Daniel Spoerri, Jean Tinguely, and Jacques Villegl . Their work incorporated consumer objects and new media in response to the postwar period's painterly modes and its burgeoning consumer and industrial society. However, they did not share a common avant-garde strategy. The Myth of Nouveau R alismeis a critical reassessment of this important neo-avant-garde movement. Kaira M. Caba as offers an interdisciplinary account of their work and challenges the ideas of Restany, who mandated a 'direct appropriation of the real.' Caba as posits that, for the Nouveau R alistes, realism engaged performative practices to produce alternative social meanings." - Publisher.. 1st. Hardcover. Fine. 8vo. Collectible.