Pierre Restany facts for kids

Pierre Restany (by Erling Mandelmann, 1998)

The Critic (Portrait of Pierre Restany) by Bernard Childs, 1959

Pierre Restany (born June 24, 1930 – died May 29, 2003) was a well-known French art critic and philosopher. An art critic writes about and judges art. A philosopher thinks deeply about big ideas.

Pierre Restany was born in Amélie-les-Bains-Palalda, France. He spent his childhood in Casablanca, a city in Morocco. In 1949, he moved back to France and went to Lycée Henri-IV for school. He then studied at universities in France, Italy, and Ireland. From 1955, he had a very strong friendship with the artist Yves Klein. Yves Klein is famous for his unique blue color, known as Klein-blue.

What Was New Realism?

In 1960, Pierre Restany came up with the idea and name for an art movement called Nouveau Réalisme. He did this with Yves Klein during an art show in Milan, Italy. This idea brought together a group of French and Italian artists.

Nouveau Réalisme was Europe's answer to American art styles like Fluxus and Pop art. The group included artists such as Martial Raysse, Arman, Yves Klein, François Dufrene, Raymond Hains, Daniel Spoerri, and Jean Tinguely. Later, other artists like César, Mimmo Rotella, Niki de Saint Phalle, and Christo joined them.

Restany said that these artists shared "new ways of looking at reality." Their first exhibition happened in November 1960 in Paris. Their art tried to rethink what art and an artist could be in a world with lots of new products and factories. They wanted to bring back human values in a time of fast industrial growth.

Pierre Restany's Career

In 1961, Pierre Restany helped start the Galerie J in Paris with Jeannine de Goldschmidt. This gallery was an important place for new art.

In 1963, Restany became an editor for Domus, a magazine about art and architecture. He split his time between Paris and Milan. He wrote for Domus regularly until 2003. In 1969, he helped organize the São Paulo Biennial, a big international art event. In the early 1970s, he became interested in the work of the Sociological art collective, a group of artists who used art to study society.

In 1976, Pierre Restany was in charge of the French section at the Venice Biennale, another major art exhibition. He put together a group show there.

In 1982, he helped create the Domus Academy in Milan. This was the first school in Milan for advanced design studies. From the early 1990s until he passed away, Restany became very interested in artists who used computers, new media, and the World Wide Web in their art. In 1984, he became the editor of the visual art magazine D'Ars.

In 1992, he organized a traveling art show called Art & Tabac, which went to Rome, Vienna, and Amsterdam. In 1994, he helped organize the Logo, Non Logo exhibition in New York City. In 1999, he was named President of the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, a famous art center.

Pierre Restany passed away in Paris in 2003. He is buried in the Montparnasse Cemetery.

See also

In Spanish: Pierre Restany para niños