You can imagine them as mischievous and irreverent, full of youth when they burst onto the French art scene. On October 27, 1960, eight artists signed a declaration drawn up by art critic Pierre Restany. He succinctly defined New Realism (Nouveau Réalisme) as “new perceptual approaches to the real”. Influenced by Dadaism and Pop Art, neorealists share issues and similar aesthetic languages ​​with these two movements. They look for and take materials from everywhere – junkyards, bulldozers, used car parking lots, fences, flea and other flea markets, supermarkets – turn away from abstraction, reuniting art with everyday life, while simultaneously moving from Paris to New York and vice versa, stopping each time in one of rooms of the famous Chelsea Hotel, a hotbed of American artistic, musical, literary and cinematic avant-garde.

Yes, New Realism is: the joy of color, the playful look at urban culture, the provocation, the obsession with the ephemeral, the rejection of the manifesto, the lack of seriousness. But it’s also “a refreshing, relevant and deeply moving side of their work that we feel tempted to appropriate to make it the realism of today,” says Maria Koutsomali, Vassilis and Elisa Goulandris Foundation Collection Manager. Moreau says.

A movement dominated by the joy of color, a playful look at urban culture, a challenge, an obsession with the ephemeral.

The international exhibition entitled “New Realism”, which will be organized from next week by the Vassilis and Elisa Goulandris Foundation, co-curated by Ms. Cutsomalie-Moro and Marion Meyer, President of the Man Ray International Association, represents one of the largest art movements of the 20th century. The new realism developed at a turning point for art, when it ceased to be called modern to be called modern. Some of the thirteen members who shaped the movement are today some of the most famous and recognized artists of the 20th century: Saint Phalle, Rice, Tigueli, Armand, Cesar, Christo. Some even in the most expensive ones, like Yves Klein, one of the most important personalities of post-war European art, who passed away quite young, the “meteor” of New Realism, which shook painting and sculpture.

“He was absolute, passionate, authentic and saw art everywhere. And especially in the sky. When he was on the beach in Nice, flying birds annoyed him because they spoiled his blueness,” explains Ms. Moreau. At one time he had few, but ardent supporters. And a lot of critics. The “rituals” that he “arranged” to create his “anthropometries” were ridiculed. His sensitive heart failed, he died after a series of heart attacks at the age of 34. Now, some six decades later, the Anthropometry series has been sold at Christie’s for $34 million.