INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM
ON THE RECEPTION OF
POP ART IN BELGIUM
(1960-1970)

1-2 DECEMBER 2011
ROYAL MUSEUMS OF
FINE ARTS OF BELGIUM

NEWS
PHOTOS
THE SYMPOSIUM
KEYNOTES
SCHEDULE
CALL FOR PAPERS
SUPPORTED BY
CONTACT
CALL FOR PAPER - RESULTS
Out of a fine selection of more then 50 participants, a scientific jury selected following papers to be presented on the symposium:

Joris D'hooghe
Pierre Restany and the New Realists

Catherine Dossin
We Rose Up Slowly: Roy Lichtenstein's Not-So-Slow European Rise

Virginie Devillez
On Evelyne Axell

Annika Öhrner
Pop in Transit, Barbro Östlihn

Peter Pauwels, Emmanuel Van de Putte
Pol Mara, American contacts and Pop Art influences

Stefanie Stallschus
Open Cinema: Pop Art and the Moving Image

Monika M. Rieger
Living with Pop - A Demonstration for Capitalist Realism

Stefan Wouters
Pop art and happenings in Belgium

Pierre Restany and the New Realists
-Joris D'hooghe

Paris, 27 October 1960. Assembled in the workshop of painter Yves Klein, the artists Arman, Martial Raysse, Daniel Spoerri, Jean Tinguely, Francois Dufrêne, Raymond Hains and Jacques de la Villeglé sign the "constitutive declaration of new realism", in proclaiming "new realism - new ways of perceiving the real". The following two and a half years, this group of artists, along with César, Mimmo Rotella, Niki de Saint Phalle, Gérard Deschamps and Christo, co-operates on a number of collective shows in Paris, Nice, Düsseldorf, Amsterdam and New York. Their final collective action takes place at the "Second festival of New Realism" in Munich in February 1963.

Today, the New Realists are widely considered as the contemporaries of American Pop Art, and often conceived as its transposition in France. Pierre Restany, the art critic who provided the New Realists with a number of critical writings during their period of collective action, is widely considered as the key figure of the movement. The leading figure who created the idea of New Realism and coined its term.

In a critically acclaimed, extensive master thesis*, supervised by Hans De Wolf and Frederik Leen, I threw a critical light on the contemporary perception of this historical movement. A perception that appears to be the result of the way Pierre Restany himself, throughout the years, created a monopoly concerning all retrospective reporting on the history of the movement. From a critical distance and after a reinterpretation of the historical sources, the image of Restany as "father of New Realism" could finally be adjusted.

* Joris D'hooghe, 'Het Deuxième Festival du nouveau réalisme - Einde van een kunstenaarsgroep? Nieuwe perspectieven in de beweging van les nouveaux réalistes' - VUB, 2007

These insights have been published in:
Joris D'hooghe, 'De kunstenaar als zelfverklaard kunstenaar. De geschiedvervalsing rond les nouveaux réalistes', rekto:verso 42, juli - augustus 2010.

Joris D'hooghe (Brussels, °1982)
Art historian (VUB, 2007): research on 20th century avant-garde and Marcel Broodthaers
Art critic: numerous publications in rekto:verso, Ons Erfdeel, Tubelight