Martial Raysse

Directing

Biography

Martial Raysse is a prominent French Nouveau Realist artist. Working with found-object assemblages, advertising imagery, and the elevation of kitsch to fine art, Raysse is often viewed as a predecessor of the Pop Art movement. His later works consisted of elaborate paintings fit with working neon lights, often featuring bright colors and Arcadian settings akin to the work of Nicholas Poussin. Born on February 12, 1936 in Golfe-Juan, France to a family of ceramicists, he started writing poetry and painting at an early age. By 1960, Raysse was a founding member of the Nouveau Realism movement, alongside artists such as Yves Klein and Jean Tinguely. The group sought to utilize and transform the industrial scale of consumer society in their own work, and exploit readymade materials for the purposes of conceptual and formal concerns. Today, Raysse’s work is held in the collections of the Tate Gallery in London, The Museum of Modern Art in New York, and the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, D.C., among others. He lives and works in Issigeac, France.

Known For

6.0

This is the only feature directed by the famed French painter and sculptor Martial Raysse. In keeping with the revolutionary spirit of the time, the movie has no plot to speak of and appears to have been largely made up on the spot. We follow the cat man into a bizarre fantasy universe presented in negative exposure that reverses color values (black is white and vice versa) and written words. The cat man steals a car and then picks up a young girl he promises to take to “Heaven.” Heaven turns out to be a country chateau inhabited by several more animal mask wearing weirdoes...

The Big Departure

1972Movie

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10.0

No description available.

Jupiter

1971Movie

N/A

Filmed in the 1970s with the art critic Otto Hahn, this film is the only visual document which brings together the thirteen Nouveaux Réalistes who participated in the artistic movement created by critic Pierre Restany in 1960 and including the text of the declaration collective was signed by Yves Klein in nine copies. Each of the artists appropriates a piece of land from the civilization of waste: from Arman the accumulations, from César the compressions of scrap metal, from Jean Tinguely the rusty machines, from Raymond Hains the torn posters.