Raymond HainsSans Titre
vers 1975
Lacerated posters on sheet metal
Signed and dated on the back
41.34 x 34.25 in ( 105 x 87 cm )

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Inquiry - Sans Titre, vers 1975

Through his posters, Raymond Hains seeks to tell stories, to arouse associations of ideas, from simple and common elements, by giving them another meaning. These posters are torn up by anonymous passers-by and chosen at random by the artist during his urban walks. The street is an important place for the "Affichistes". It is a place of improvisation and chance, marked by memory and remembrance. For this work, Hains does not machete these pieces of poster on canvas, but rather takes the sheet metal panel directly, because he appreciates the colour of this material.

Here the artist borrows an object from everyday reality to transform it into a symbol of renewal, and by signing this panel, these posters are sublimated into works of art.

"My works existed before me, but they weren't seen because they were too obvious.

Raymond Hains

Born in Saint-Brieuc in 1926 and died in 2005, Raymond Hains lived and worked between Paris and Nice. He is one of the founding members of the New Realists. Hains pursued a singular journey, where word games, "hypnagogic" photographs (with pieces of glass), associations of ideas, the objects he finds, occupy an important place.

He collects posters on their original support, wood and metal, which allow him to establish a dialogue between the background and the colors of the image.

"My works existed before me, but we did not see them because they punctured the eyes". "The era of the sheets" follows the discovery by Raymond Hains in 1958 of the Bompaire warehouse where they were stored. Sheet metal or palisade, he is seized by the original support which bursts onto the surface, modifying the perception pattern / background: "It pleased me at the level of colours. I like the gray of the galvanized sheet metal (...). I was closer to informal painting than when I picked up posters.'