Metal Sheet
Torn posters on a zinc sheet
Signed and dated on the back
Unique piece
1970
Dimensions :
Height: 40 in. Width: 32 ¼ in.
Provenance :
Collection Mr. P. A., Paris
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.
