Ainsi bafouée

“Easel painting (like every other type of classical means of expression in the domain of painting and sculpture) has had its day. At the moment it lives on in the last remnants, still sometimes sublime, of its long monopoly,” declared the first manifesto of the nouveaux realists, which continued: “What do we propose instead? The passionate adventure of the real perceived in itself . . .” Raymond Hains saw this demand for “real seeing” and a “direct aesthetics” redeemed in urban spaces. He was full of enthusiasm for the pictorial quality of poster hoardings, with their coincidental and anonymous layers, their tearing and their weathering, producing collage effects over time, and becoming pictures all by themselves. For Hains, these poster and advertising surfaces were like contemporary panel paintings reflecting urban and consumer realities. He removed large parts together with their mounts and brought them directly from the street into exhibition spaces, changing nothing. “My studio is the street,” Hains said—“my studio is the street.” The torn billboard seen here came directly from a Paris arrondissement. Several posters with different contents form layers on a zinc plate. The torn and colorful paper and the surface of the metal that shines through combine to make an abstract image. The title of the work, Ainsi bafouée (Thus Mistreated), is seen in the lower center.