nieuw realisme en pop art uit de jaren 60 - Borzo

NEW REALISM IN THE NETHERLANDS,
THE NINETEEN-SIXTIES
The Dutch Nul movement, arising in the wake of the
international Zero movement, is a derivative of
Nouveau Réalisme. The Nul artists Schoonhoven,
Peeters and Armando achieve a certain aesthetic
through making tableaux and reliefs, mainly monochromatic
and indeed serialist and repetitive in motif
and composition, thereby coming closest to the
ideas of NUL and ZERO. Jan Henderikse on the other
hand changes absolutely nothing in his objects.
He arranges, stacks or isolates ordinary objects such
as coins, corks, plastic bottles and ‘odds and ends’
and declares the result to be art: New Realism.
AMERICA
In America too – of course! – the nineteen-fi fties sees
artists actively deviating from the path of ‘traditional’
painting or sculpture. Infl uenced by artists who have
emigrated to or returned from Europe such as André
Breton, Man Ray and other surrealists, various artists
fi nd new forms and new media for expression. Two of
these appear in this exhibition: Joseph Cornell and
Louise Nevelson. Working entirely independently of
each other the two artists nevertheless display an
amazing similarity in their preferred means of expression,
the ‘box’. Nevelson was at the centre of the New
York art scene and was friends with many fellow artists
and gallery owners. By contrast Cornell was a loner
and for his whole life lived and worked in the comparatively
‘cut-off’ Queens. However, his infl uence on
other artists, in particular Rauschenberg and Jasper
Johns, is signifi cant and in this sense prepares the way
for Pop Art.
Just as in Paris in 1960 Yves Klein, Pierre Restany
and others distance themselves with Nouveau
Réalisme from the Abstraction Lyrique of Bazaine,
Manessier & co, a similar thing happens in New York
where Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns and
friends disassociate themselves from the Abstract
Expressionism of Willem de Kooning and Jackson
Pollock. New York is soon to encounter the
phenomenon of Pop Art.
modern & contemporary art
Jan Henderikse (1937)
Vader en zoon 1959, signed on the reverse
assemblage in wooden crate, 50 x 39 x 16 cm
The Dutch Nul
movement,
arising in the
wake of the
international
Zero movement,
is a derivative
of Nouveau
Réalisme.
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