Si l’art est partout, il est aussi dans cette boîte (“If art is everywhere, it is also in this box”) by BEN. Photo © Ben Vautier, Adagp, Paris 2025
“So I bunged the thing in and got on with the job”.
I think that’s a line from Goodbye To All That, Robert Graves’ autobiographical novel.
It’s the “bung together” that tickles me: dirty, weary and drunk, hopeless, the squad and I bung the looted, still near-full, cask of Amontillado into the breach, scrabble back, dully wondering if it’ll do the trick.
The exhibition Tous Léger at the Musée du Luxembourg has inspired this.
I left the exhibition months ago now with thoughts and ironies aplenty – too many – and I put them off with a promise to myself to consider them later. I surely had time. I then stuck to discussing the sense in art in the 20th- and 21st-century: Good and giddy, arty and philosophical: “Tout Léger” at the Musée du Luxembourg.
Saperlipopette! Tous Léger ends 20 July! Nearly already September, still bursting with things to say and ironies to bandy.
Time to bung in that cask of Amontillado!
When it was observed that he had “something of the night about him”, UK Tory politician Michael Howard’s prime ministerial ambitions just up and died, went to wherever killed ambitions go. Similarly, having something of the woman about an artist seems to kill serious just as effectively.
It’s hard to put a finger on it, but even popular contemporary artists such as Sophie Calle or Tracey Emin, who for some reason spells her first name wrong, are somehow not quite serious artists. In the many different exhibitions where she’s presented, Niki de Saint Phalle, who figured largely in the Nouveau Réalisme group and figures largely at the thematic heart of Tous Léger, very often gets an air of high-class decorator who makes cute and optimistic stuff to go on tee-shirts and coffee mugs.
Miles Davis by Niki de Saint Phalle. Photo © 2025 Niki Charitable Art Foundation - Adagp, Paris
But I didn’t have that feeling about the artist after my Tous Léger visit. On the contrary. I had the feeling that Niki de Saint Phalle, though she has something of the woman about her, is an honest-to-God, serious artist. And, after reflection, I decided I felt this this less because she was given good space, was gifted by curators with an esthetic legacy from Fernand Léger and grouped with serious-artist peers such as César and Martial Raysse and Yves Klein and much more because in the course of the exhibition, I got a vocabulary adequate to analyzing and discussing her art.
I got my adequate vocabulary from Tous Léger curators Julie Guttierez and Rebecca François. For the show, they developed a lexicon they call Histoire des Gestes (“Story of Deeds”) and wrote it in the format of an ordinary explicative timeline on the walls of, I think, the second room of the exhibition. As I continued through the exhibition I remembered the new words I’d learned as I considered the different pieces. By the time I did my backward and forward run, I felt equipped with a new discourse – one suitable also for talking about visual arts as a part of “movement art” (dance performance).
I adapt and re-publish Histoire des Gestes below as “Lexicon of Creating”.
Looking at de Saint Phalle (and at her peer artists – and at today’s artists) using words of deeds nudges the conversation from art as “beauty” or “object” or “product” or “heritage” (from esthetics, technicity and ideology), to art as “creativity” – to the creative process and the role and effect of creativeness (“art movement”) in the world around.
Le Cycliste by Karel Appel. Photo © Karel Appel Foundation
Histoire des Gestes throws an anchor into 1930 to localize Fernand Léger as genitor for the post-war artists featuring in the exhibition. But otherwise it describes “key” doings or actions or movements undertaken by the featured artists from 1954 to 1974. Each of these doings is characterized by a word, usually a verb. For instance, the entry for Fernand Léger’s doings is DEFINIR (“Define”).
Taken together, the deed-words of Histoire des Gestes make up a vocabulary that descries the shape of the creative action of Nouveau Réalisme that is the thematic of the exhibition, although it surely has wider applications.
Yves Klein’s “Blue Women Art”, essentially, a performance of models rolling in or smearing on blue paint performance just makes more sense as an act of ANTHROPOMETRIE, “Man-measuring” (viz., the entry in the lexicon below). Similarly, qualifying Niki de Saint Phalle’s Hon, essentially walking into a giant vagina, makes a lot of sense on many layers as an action of NANA-IFIER (“Girlie-ize”), broadly, re-position and express woman art and woman in art but also “woman” as a social being (viz., the entry in the lexicon below).
As I indicated above, in my mind, “creating”, “action”, “movement” point to the natural entanglement of visual art and dance performance. The one emphasizes perhaps the flow of creativity into and out of things and the other, the flow of creativity within people, between them and into the things that make up the world around. Yves Klein, according to Histoire des Gestes, an anthropometrist, saturator, empty-er-fill-er is also considered by many as the originator of performance art (what I call “dance performance” and is broadly characterized as “movement art”).
It seems to me that in underlining the movement or process aspects of creativity, along with the context-contingence of, especially Nouveau Réalisme’s products, the artists in this exposition are, at least in terms of concepts, actions and conversations, big contributors to building dance performance as we see it today. An even bigger contribution could be argued, I think, if a body considers performance-theater such as that being made today by Nathalie Béasse as part of the “Nouveau Réalisme”’s legacy in contemporary movement arts.
Lexicon of Creating (Histoire des Gestes)
The interpretation and adaptation into English of Julie Guttierez’ and Rebecca François’ Histoire des Gestes is my own. I’ve re-titled it Lexicon of Creating.
As noted above, Guttierez and François organize the content of Histoire des Gestes on a timeline. But I want to play down history and heritage, so I’ve removed it. I have also shuffled content and the original place of the entries when it suits me.
In the entries for Lexicon of Creating, I first give my English adaptation of the French word designating the deed/movement, with the all-caps French word just after in parentheses. I summarily adapt into English the event(s)/action(s) referenced by Guttierez and François. I’ve added all the hyperlinks and they don’t necessarily reflect choices that might have been made by the authors of Histoire des Gestes. [Between brackets], I sometimes add information that I think potentially useful, in particular, for a non-specialist person of the Anglo-Saxon cultural persuasion.
Entries of Lexicon of Creating look like this :
Package/Wrap (EMPAQUETER): seat/contextualize objects, like artist Christo & Jeanne Claude, who are creating wrapping and packaging for bottles, cans, baggage, furniture and toys by tying it in thick fabric.
Entries of Histoire des Gestes look like this:
EMPAQUETER Christo réalise ses premiers empaquetages d’objet. Bouteilles, conserves, bagages, mobiliers, jouets sont emmaillotés dans un tissu épais à l’aide de cordages. Cette action suscite un nouveau regard sur des objets cachés, dissimulés à la vue du spectateur. Dans cette logique de voilement/dévoilement, la question de la protection (conservation) et de l’identification (reconnaissance) d’objets ordinaires acquiert une dimension esthétique et poétique.
As to the misunderstanding and misinterpretation, over- and under-reading I generate or might have generated for Lexicon of Creating, here are three exemplary problematics to guide scepticism: I want to write “Tous Légers”, “s” plural, not proper convention for a family name in French and I habitually write Musée de Luxembourg instead of du; in English we have “story” and “history for histoire; is Beowulf a chanson des Gestes like Chanson de Roland and if so how does this information apply to my reading of cultural allusion in the title Histoire des Gestes? …
I am no better than I should be, so don’t hesitate to consult the text or even contact the authors of Histoire des Gestes. The original is available in the catalogue of the exhibition or you can have a partial list in the pedagogical notes to the show
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Lexicon of Creating
Define (DÉFINIR): In 1930 Fernand Léger uses the term nouveau réalisme (“new realism”) … [to define what he sees as the esthetic revolution worked by the [cinematic] close-up, which allows “the fragmentary to be the whole [of the personality]”. This is not without resonance with quasi-contemporary and also self-defined post-impressionist Dada/Expressionist-inspired Kurt Schwitters’ famous “Merz” approach to art – creating a whole from random fragment. Léger returns to the idea often in his writing; Thomas O. Bouchard’s film documentary on his 1940-45 exile in the USA is called Fernand Léger in America: His New Realism (1945)].
Rival (RIVALISER): Put like with non-like, like New York MOMA’s The Art of Assemblage show (1961) [put together by William Chapin Seitz, only recently appointed associate curator, who uses “assemblage”, ways in which found objects or objects brought together are assembled]. The show brings together contemporary actors of Nouveau Réalisme and Pop Art.
Electrify (ÉLECTRISER): Seek to animate, like Martial Raysse, who adds neon light to his visual art.
Play in Play with Play over (JOUER): Do interactive and immersive installations, like Amsterdam’s Stedelijk Museum’s “Dynamic Labyrinth” installations set up by Robert Rauschenberg, Martial Raysse, Niki de Saint Phalle, Daniel Spoerri, Jean Tinguely and Per Olof Ultvedt.
Eat (MANGER): Do Interactive performance art, like Daniel Spoerri’s “Eat Art”.
Sign life (SIGNER LA VIE): De-separate “art” and “non-art”, like Ben’s Fluxus action-art performance in the streets and businesses of Nice, signing all the ordinary things around him.
Veil and Unveil (VOILER/DÉVOILER): Reify esthetic value of ordinary things with in-situ performance events/objects, like Christo & Jeanne-Claude’s Valley Curtain, hiding a whole valley view.
Nanafy (NANA-IFIER), Bring woman back into creation, like Niki de Saint Phalle’s giant polyester Nana statues. [Centre nationale de ressources textuelles et lexicales (CNRTL): Nana: “Attested in 1949, the word indicated a prostitute, mistress, then concubine, before evolving into “girl, woman, girlfriend” around 1952.” “Nana” is today in current use as a casual form of “woman”, is often in a pair, “mec et nana”. Cf., mug and moll, bitch and stud, guy and gal.]
Love (TO LOVE): Re-integrate word and thing, like Robert Indiana with his LOVE fetishes. [The French word “lover” means “writhe” as a serpent or cat or, often, “nestle” or “rub up against, rub together”.]
Pierce (PÉNÉTRER): Bring the public inside, make the inside the outside, like Niki de Saint Phalle’s Hon project sculpture at the Stockholm Moderna Museet, a giant walk-in Nana whose entry-point is the vagina. [Viz., lexicon entry “Nana-fier”. Cf., Centre Pompidou architecture].
Expand (EXPANSER): Find and use new materials, like the sculptor César, [known also for his “compressions” (of objects such as cars)] presents his “La Grande Expansion orange”, a sculpture in polyurethane, at Salon de mai 1967
Commemorate (COMMÉMORER): Together, recall and finish work begun (define), like the Nouveau Réalistes do at Milan for their 10th and final anniversary…
Dream (RÊVER): Realize the dream, like Niki de Saint Phalle creates her Tarot Garden between Florence and Milan
Bring together (ASSEMBLER): Let objects speak, like Niki de Saint Phalle with her “tableaux-assemblages” (assembled sculptures/paintings), ordinary/everyday objects such as toys inserted into plaster on wall board
Saturate (IMPRÉGNER): Think color and nothingness/perception as contingent phenomenon, like Yves Klein’s “époque bleue”, an assembly of identical International Klein Blue [rectangles] for Klein’s “Propositions monochromes, époque bleue” exhibitions in Milan, Düsseldorf and London
Tear and wear (LACÉRER): Look again (and over time), reconsider public spaces, like Raymond Hains and Jacques Villeglé, who present worn, torn off advertising posters from the streets of Paris for an exhibition called Loi du 29 juillet 1881 [the law that, essentially, establishes free speech in France and is as ubiquitous as a fine print in public space as Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité]
Empty out-Fill up (VIDER/REMPLIR): Note being and nothing, multiple and ironic binaries, like Yves Klein’s Le Vide (“Vacuum/Nothingness”) exhibition at Iris Clert galérie in Paris, featuring empty white walls. Arman responds to Le Vide by filling up the gallery’s display with litter and trash and within his own Accumulations exhibit presents Le Plein (“Filled up”), consumer and industrial objects.
Accumulate (ACCUMULER): Reproduce industrial stuff, like ARMAN’s action-object Accumulations show at hôtel Ruhl in Nice. This brings together, first, ordinary and used, then, new, identical manufactured objects in a wooden box which is then boxed in Plexiglass. This is followed by an in-situ, ephemeral installation of 60 free-standing coat racks.
Compress (COMPRESSER): Reshape common objects, like César, whose “Compressions dirigées” exhibition uses a hydraulic compressor to squash cars into one-ton boxes whose qualities differ according to materials, plasticity and mode of charge into the machine.
Parody (PARODIER): Consider machine creativity, like Jean Tinguely’s “Méta-Matics” drawing and painting machines.
(Re)position (PIÉGER): Turn-about perspectives, like Daniel Spoerri’s action-concept “Tableaux- Pièges” (Trick Paintings) that glue found pieces – from meal remains to things from a flea market shelf - to a horizontal board that is then turned to the vertical
Sublimate (SUBLIMER): Estheticize, ironize consumerism, consumer goods, like Arman’s and Martial Raysse’s “Hygiène de la vision”, materialization of the artists’ consumerist visions, or displays of small one-use plastic items as the high art of the consumer society in “tableaux-assemblages” of such items and feature stylized forms in ultra-saturated bright colors around the theme “joie de vivre”.
Anthropometrize/man-measure (ANTHROPOMÉTRISER): Do performance/movement as art and art-object, like Yves Klein’s “Anthropométries de l’époque bleue” performance at galerie internationale d’Art contemporain in which, directed by Klein, three nude women cover themselves in blue paint and imprint themselves on body-sized sheets of paper to the live sound of Klein’s Symphonie Monoton-Silence (“Monotone-silence symphony”), which consists of one-note lasting 20 minutes and silence lasting 20 minutes
Self-destruct (S’AUTO-DÉTRUIRE): Consider qualities of machinery, like Jean Tinguely, who starts up his first auto-destructive machine installation, Hommage to New York, in the gardens of the New York Museum of Modern Art.
Inaugurate (INAUGURER): Start then mark out creative vectors, forebears and familiars [I use “familiars” as a semantic composite: friends/ethereal connections], like when critic Pierre Restany and creators Raymond Hains and André Verdet stopped for the inauguration of the new Musée National Fernand Léger at Biot, a town in the south of France, on their way to the first collective exposition of Nouveaux Réalistes at galérie Apollinaire at Milan where Restany will read the Manifesto for Nouveau Réalisme. Musée National Fernand Léger is the primary source and organizer for the exhibition Tous Léger, from which this lexicon is taken.
Come together/constitute (CONSTITUER): Name yourselves, like Pierre Restany, Arman, François Dufrêne, Raymond Hains, Yves
Klein, Martial Raysse, Daniel Spoerri, Jean Tinguely, Jacques Villeglé, who met a late October evening in the Paris apartment of Klein to sign Une Déclaration constitutive du Nouveau Réalisme, a brainchild of critic Pierre Restany and Yves Klein, which pointed to new creative perceptions of the ‘real’. César and Mimmo Rotella, invited to the event, were no-shows. Niki de Saint Phalle, Gérard Deschamps and Christo joined later. [The declaration is two sentences handwritten on a single page with signatures].
Dissolve (DISSOUDRE ): Undo what’s done without undoing it, like Raymond Hains, Yves Klein and Martial Raysse did for the Nouveaux Réalistes (viz., entry “Commemorate” above), without, however, ending or interfering with any Nouveaux Réalistes group activities.
Shoot (TIRER): Expand the sense/roles of the tools in creation, like Niki de Saint Phalle who organizes her “Tirs” (“Shootings”), including 12 “Actions-Tirs” at Jeanine de Goldschmidt’s Galérie J. Participants – Public shooting from 5 to 7 pm the time of the action-concept – and de Saint Phalle will create different optics on the actions, which by shooting into plaster where de Saint Phalle has concealed pouches of color or other liquids that then bleed out on the surface. New York Galerist Leo Castelli, painters Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg and Frank Stella, all known for Abstract Expressionism and Pop Art on the American scene, are present, along with many members of the Nouveau Réaliste group.
Burn (BRÛLER): Expand domains and tools of creation, like Yves Klein’s creation of his “Peintures de feu” (“Fire Paintings”) in collaboration with the Gaz de France test center at La Plaine Saint Denis.
Deconstruct (DÉCONSTRUIRE): Reconsider, recompose, re-discover, like ARMAN whose action-decomposition wrecked [specifically “symbolic”] old furniture or bourgeois musical instruments with a sledgehammer and, used the materials of the wrecked objects to create a new genre of Still Life.
Party/celebrate (FÊTER): Consider art as an active celebration, like the first festival of Nouveau Réalisme, including work by Arman, Raymond Hains, Yves Klein, Mimmo Rotella, Niki de Saint Phalle, Daniel Spoerri and Jean Tinguely at galerie Muratore in Nice and a series of action-performances at the nearby abbaye de Roseland, owned by Paris gallerist Jean Larcade. [Larcade was also known for his appreciation of “Art Informel” (the WW2-period opening into de-compositional, “gestural” or movement creations, as well as Action-Art, which is also sometimes called “making the movement of paint part of the painting”].
Authenticate/stamp/invalidate (TAMPONNER): Recognize the tools, like Arman’s Cachets, which featured dense, random stamping of a sheet of paper [A cachet is an officializing stamp or notarization. “Obliteré” means to “remove validity”, as with a post mark, which uses a mark to invalidates the stamp to validate its value. Arman is influenced by the work of Dada/Expressionist-inspired Kurt Schwitters, famous for his “Merz” style: valuing/integrating “random” or found creativity].
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List of Artists featured at “Tous Léger! Avec Niki de Saint Phalle, Yves Klein, Martial Raysse, Keith Haring...”
Marcel Alocco, 1937, Nice – lives and works in Nice/ Karel Appel, 1921, Amsterdam – 2006, Zurich/ ARMAN (Armand Fernandez), 1928, Nice – 2005, New York/ BEN (Benjamin Vautier), 1935, Naples – 2024, Nice/ César (César Baldaccini), 1921, Marseilles – 1998, Paris/ Christo & Jeanne Claude: Christo Javacheff, 1935, Gabrovo (Bulgaria) – 2020, New York/Jeanne-Claude, 1935, Casablanca – 2009, New York/ Gilbert & George: Gilbert, 1943, San Martino (Italy)/George, 1942, Plymouth (England) – both live and work in London/ Raymond Hains, 1926, Saint-Brieuc (France) - 2005, Paris/ Keith Haring, 1958, Kunztown, PA (USA) – 1990, New York/ Robert Indiana, 1928, New Castle (USA) – 2018, Vinalhaven, ME (USA)/ Alain Jacquet , 1939, Neuilly-sur-Seine (France) – 2008, New York/ Yves Klein, 1928, Nice – 1962, Paris/ Fernand Léger, 1881, Argentan (France) – 1955, Gif-sur-Yvette (France)/ Roy Lichtenstein, 1923, New York – 1997, New York/ Martial Raysse , 1936, Golfe-Juan (France) – lives and works in Issigeac (France)/ Larry Rivers , 1923, New York – 2002, Southampton (USA)/ Niki de Saint Phalle , 1930, Neuilly-sur-Seine (France) – 2002, San Diego/ Daniel Spoerri , 1930, Galati (Kingdom of Romania) – 2024, Vienna/ Jacques Villeglé (Jacques Mahé de La Villeglé), 1926, Quimper (France) – 2022, Paris/ May Wilson, 1905, Baltimore – 1986, New York.