Léger and the New Realists The MAMAC collections in Biot

WRITTEN IN FRENCH

Fascinated by progress, speed, lights and advertising slogans punctuating the urban space, Fernand Léger (1881-1955) participated in the modernist revolution by framing reality in its most prosaic forms. Through this exhibition and the accompanying catalogue, an aesthetic, thematic and formal dialogue emerges between his works and those of artists affiliated with New Realism.

A fervent admirer of Léger's work, with whom he shared a rejection of socialist realism, the art critic Pierre Restany is said to have named this movement in homage to the painter, who used this formula several times in his theoretical writings.

In addition to the works of Yves Klein, Niki de Saint Phalle, Arman, César, Daniel Spoerri, Raymond Hains, Martial Raysse, the exhibition will also be open to American "new realists" who, like Roy Lichtenstein, Keith Haring or Robert Indiana, flourished from the early 1960s, whether through Pop Art or the resurgence of an art of assemblage, and which also maintain an aesthetic filiation with the visionary work of Fernand Léger, whose approach was profoundly marked by his travels and then his exile in the United States from 1940 to 1945.

Exhibition at the Musée national Fernand Léger, Biot, from 15 June to 18 November 2024

French
208 pages / 150 illustrations

Editions GrandPalaisRmnEditions