Chapter 18 - NOUVEAU REALISME AND FLUXUS

1. Chapter 18
NOUVEAU
REALISME AND
FLUXUS

2. Manifesto of Nouveau Réalisme signed October
27, 1960The New Realists have seized awareness
of their collective singularity New Realism = new
ways of perceiving the real
“Sensibility in Material form”: Klein
Nouveau Realism (which translates
as ‘new realism’):
• was founded in 1960 by the critic
Pierre Restany,
• Included artists associated with
nouveau réalism
• made extensive use of
• collage
• assemblage
• Painting

3. By the late 1950s, Klein’s works were:
• almost exclusively in a deep blue
hue he patented as International
Klein Blue (IKB)
• made using naked female models
covered in blue paint dragged
across or laid upon canvases to
make the image, using the models
as “living paintbrushes”.
• turned into a kind of performance
art which also involved an
instrumental ensemble played
Klein’s The Monotone Symphony,
which consisted of a single
sustained note.
Yves Klein. Blue Monochrome
1961. Dry pigment in synthetic
polymer medium on cotton
over plywood. 6’ 4-7⁄8” × 4’ 7-1⁄8”
The Museum of Modern Art,
New York

4. Photography provided
performance artists with a new tool
to develop their work.
Leap into the Void was made in
October 1960, when Klein jumped
from the rooftop of his art dealer’s
house in Paris.
Having a black belt in Judo, Klein
knew how to fall. The original
photo shows seven people holding
a tarpaulin for Klein to land in.
He edited them out giving him a
sense of imaginary flight.
Yves
Klein.Leap into
the Void
Fontenay-aux-
Roses. October
23, 1960,
Photograph by
Harry Shunk

5. Tinguely and Saint Phalle
Swiss sculptor, Jean Tinguely, began
experimenting with mechanical sculptures in the
late 1930s, using motors to make them rotate.
In the mid 1960s Tinguely produced his first
monumental works for an urban setting.
Tinguely
• He made his mechanical sculptures by with
scrap materials and found objects.
• Was critical towards technological optimism.
• disagreed with the Italian Futurists' belief that
movement combined with technology
represented the most important objective of
modern art.
Jean Tinguely. Homage to
New York. 1960. Mixed
media. Self-destructing
installation in the garden of
The Museum of Modern
Art, New York

6. Niki de Saint-Phalle.
Black Venus. 1965–67.
Painted polyester
9’ 2-1⁄4” × 2’ 11” × 2’.
Whitney Museum of
American Art New York
Niki de Saint Phalle
• spent her childhood in NY.
• returned to Paris in 1951.
• joined the New Realist group in 1961,
after meeting Jean Tinguely.
• used everyday objects to express a
reality repressed by social constraints.
• In 1964, she returned to the female
iconography producing the first of her
Nanas.
• She painted them in extremely vivid
colors. They were sometimes on a
monumental scale

7. Arman
• Was a French-born American artist
who incorporated actual objects in
the sculpture.
According to Arman, the title is a pun on
the shaving motif.
• The female figure is
• reminiscent of both classical
sculpture
• and fashion mannequins
Arman described sculptures like this,
incorporating manufactured objects, as
'accumulations'.
Arman. Bluebeard’s Wife
1969. Mixed media in polyester
resin. 33 × 11-1⁄2 × 12-1⁄2”
Tate, London

8. In Long-Term Parking, Arman
focuses on the idea of mass
produced objects, pointing to the
culture of mass consumption.
Arman. Long-Term Parking. 1982. Sixty
automobiles imbedded in cement. 60 ×
20 × 20’. Centre d’Art de Montcel,
Jouy-en-Josas France

9. César, Ricard,
Compression of a car,
1962. Compressed
automobile parts. The
Museum of Modern Art.
César
• was major participant in Nouveau
Réalisme movement.
• is best known for known for his use of
compacted cars.
The most emblematic of César’s works are
the Compressions, which he began making
in 1958, first employing flat sheets of metal,
then using cars which he compacted into
blocks
Raysse
• prominent French Nouveau Realist artist.
• made found-object assemblages
• is often viewed as a predecessor of the
Pop Art movement.

10. Christo and Jeanne-Claude
• Christo's first artworks, dating
from 1958, consist of everyday
objects such as bottles, cans,
and furniture wrapped in canvas,
and bundled in twine.
• in the 1960s, Christo and Jeanne-
Claude submitted proposals for
wrapping projects, often
involving iconic buildings.
• Sometimes had setbacks and
refusals by the governments.
• their projects exist in the form of
a photographic documentation,
collage and text by the artists.
Christo and Jeanne-Claude
Wrapped Kunsthalle. 1968 Bern,
Switzerland. Photo in collection of
Christo and Jeanne-Claude [

11. Christo & Jeanne-Claude
Surrounded Islands, Biscayne
Bay, Miami, Florida, 1980-83
The Surrounded Islands project:
• used 6.5 million square feet of
floating pink fabric.
• encircled eleven islands,
extending the perimeter of each
island by 200 feet.
• involved many contractors,
engineers, attorneys, and
seamstresses
• required extensive consultation
with marine biologists and
ornithologists.
• benefited the surroundings. The
project's crew removed forty
tons of garbage from the
uninhabited islands.
The color of the fabric evoked
hibiscus flowers and flamingos

12. Christo, Surrounded Islands, Project
for Biscayne Bay, Greater Miami,
Florida, collage 1983, ball-point pen,
colored pencil, graphite, enamel
paint, photograph by Wolfgang Volz,
and tape, on paper, (12 ½” x 13”).
National Gallery of Art, Washington,
The polypropylene fabric was
sewn to correspond to the
contours of each island.
As the unfurling began on May 4,
1983, the islands themselves
seemed to bloom.
The crew consisted of the artists
and 430 workers.
The project was on view for two
weeks.
The work was visible to the public
from the causeways, the land, the
water, and the air.

13. George Maciunas. Fluxus
Manifesto. 1963. Offset
8-3⁄16 × 5-11⁄16”. The Museum
of Modern Art,New York
Fluxus
• Fluxus was a group of artists from
different countries, but had an
especially strong presence in New
York City.
• Like others in the movements
before them, such as the Futurists
and Dadaists, Fluxus artists
disregarded the authority of
museums to determine the value
of art.
• Fluxus wanted art to be available
to the masses which was in line
with the climate of the 1960’s.

14. View of George Maciunas
and Billie Hutching’s
Fluxus Wedding. Photo
by Peter Moore © Estate
of Peter Moore/Licensed
by VAGA, NYC
George Maciunas
• is historically considered the primary
founder and organizer of the movement.
• studied architecture, art history, graphic
design, and musicology
• organized and performed in early
happenings.
• envisioned art as social process.
• developed cancer of in 1977.
• three months before his death, he
married the poet Billie Hutching.
• after the legal wedding the couple
performed a "Fluxwedding" on
February 25, 1978.
• The event was taped by video artist
Dimitri Devyatkin.

15. Ono and Beuys
Ono was an artist associated with the
Fluxus movement although she
didn’t accept Maciunas’ invitation to
join the movement.
Cut Piece
• was first presented on July 20,
1964 at Yamaichi Concert Hall,
Kyoto.
• examined role the female body has
played in art throughout the ages.
how should be viewed today?
Yoko Ono performing
Cut Piece at Carnegie
Recital Hall New York City
March 21, 1965

16. Joseph Beuys. How to Explain
Pictures to a Dead Hare. 1965.
Performance at the Galerie
Schmela, Düsseldorf
Joseph Beuys
• was a German-born artist active in
Europe and the United States from
the 1950s through the early 1980s.
• was associated with the
international, proto-Conceptual art
movement, Fluxus.
• is well known for performance
works incorporating animal fat and
felt, two common materials - one
organic, the other fabricated, or
industrial.

17. Joseph Beuys
Coyote. I Like America and America
Likes Me, 1974
Joseph Beuys demonstrated
how art works
• can start with a personal
experience
• and can address universal
artistic, political, and/or
social ideas.
In the 1965 performance, How
to Explain Pictures to a Dead
Hare, materials of personal
significance suggest the
healing power of art.

18. In 1941 Joseph Beuys volunteered for
the German Air Force. On March 16,
1944 his plane crashed in a snow storm
at Crimea.
Crimean Tartars found the injured
Beuys and treated. They covered his
wounds with fat and wrapped him with
felt.
Beuys’s choices of materials were
connected to that event.
Beuys’ plane crash in 1943 is the
source of his iconography and the
explanation for two of the two he
worked with: materials, fat and felt.
Joseph Beuys. The Pack. 1969
Installation with Volkswagen
bus and twenty sledges, each
carrying felt, fat, and a
Flashlight. Staatliche
Kunstsammlungen Kassel,
Neue Galerie Kassel, Germany