The Kunsthalle Mannheim is dedicating the largest special exhibition in Germany for more than fifteen years to Nouveau Réalisme and its environment. For the first time, the project draws a comprehensive, multipolar and global cartography of the movement with its epicenter in Paris, whose international reach extends beyond the group initiated and supported by Pierre Restany in 1960.
From the post-war period to the early 1970s, many artists in Europe, Latin America and the USA explored the potential of the found object as artistic material. By directly engaging with reality, they developed new, often radical forms of expression. Their themes ranged from questions about the body and identity to a critical examination of industrial society and environmental destruction.
