Untitled
Torn posters on a zinc sheet
Signed and dated on the back
Unique piece
1971
Dimensions:
Height: 31 ½ in. Width: 15 ¾ in.
Provenance:
Private collection, Paris (Mr. T.A.)
Remarks:
In this piece, Raymond Hains works on the very personal framing of large posters on a zinc sheet, torn, worn out by time or by the hazards of the streets, as one could find on the walls. He thus reappropriates a new iconography inherited from the urban public space as well as claiming his role as an “inaction painter”. He invents a new mode of artistic creation, which is not without recalling Marcel Duchamp’s method with his ready-mades. Taking the opposing view of traditional painting techniques, he removes “ready-mades” works from the urban space, advertisement posters torn by the passers-by’s anonymous hands. The role of the artist then resides in the appropriation rather than in an aesthetic transposition.
