Pierre Restany

Pierre Restany (24 June 1930 – 29 May 2003), was an internationally well known French art critic and cultural philosopher.

Restany was born in Amélie-les-Bains-Palalda and spent his childhood in Casablanca. On returning to France in 1949 he attended the Lycée Henri-IV before studying at universities in France, Italy and Ireland. From their first meeting in 1955, Restany maintained a strong tie with Yves Klein, creator of the extraordinary "Klein-Blue" - work of intense spiritually -charged energy defined by Restany as a "phenomenon of pure contemplation."

Conceptions of New Realism / Nouveau Realisme

In 1960 Pierre Restany created the idea and coined the term "Nouveau Réalisme" with Yves Klein during a collective exposition in the Apollinaire gallery in Milan. It was an idea which united a group of French and Italian artists. [Karl Ruhrberg, Ingo F. Walther, "Art of the 20th Century", Taschen, 2000, p518. ISBN 3822859079] Nouveau Realisme was the European answer to the American Neo-Dada of Fluxus and Pop Art. The group included Martial Raysse, Arman, Yves Klein, François Dufrêne, Raymond Hains, Daniel Spoerri, Jean Tinguely, Jacques Villeglé - and was later joined by Cesar, Mimmo Rotella, Niki de Saint Phalle and Christo. Restany defined this group of artists as bearing in common a "new perspective approaches of reality". The first exposition of the "Nouveaux réalistes" took place in November 1960 at the Paris Festival d'avant-garde. Their work was an attempt at reassessing the concept of art and the artist in the context of a 20th Century consumer society by reasserting the humanistic ideals in the face of industrial expansion. [cite web| publisher=Artopos|date=1996-08-02|title=Pierre Restany|url = http://www.artopos.org/contributors/restany-fr.html]

From 1963 onwards Restany edited the art and architectural magazine Domus and divided his time between Montparnasse Paris and Milan Italy. In the early 1970s he took interest in the work of the Sociological art collective. From the early 1990s up to his death Restany took a keen and growing interest in artists working in the areas of computer art, new media art, digital art and the world wide web. Pierre Restany died in Paris in 2003 and is buried in the Montparnasse Cemetery.

References

Bibliography

*Pierre Restany, "Manifeste des Nouveaux Réalistes", [http://www.editions-dilecta.com Editions Dilecta] , Paris, 2007.

ee also

* "Décollage"
* Ultra-Lettrist
* César
* Mimmo Rotella
* Niki de Saint Phalle
* Christo
* Yves Klein

External links

* Geneviève Breerette, « [http://www.fabula.org/actualites/article6100.php Pierre Restany, critique d'art] », "Le Monde", 30 mai 2003
* [http://www.ladifference.fr/fiches/auteurs/restany.html Fiche] sur le site des Éditions La Différence
* [http://www.cnac-gp.fr/education/ressources/ENS-newrea-EN/ENS-newrea-EN.htm New Realism] essay from the Centre Pompidou