09.16.2026-10.31.2026
Vernissage le mercredi 16 septembre
16h à 21h à l'occasion de la Geneva Art Week
the New Realism
a poetic recycling of urban reality
Since opening her gallery in 1980, Sonia Zannettacci has dedicated solo exhibitions to several of these artists who, having observed that they were all engaged in “new perceptual approaches to reality” and having become aware of their “collective singularity,” signed the New Realism Manifesto during a meeting on October 27, 1960, at Yves Klein’s home.
Unlike classical realism, this form of realism was new in that the reality it depicted stemmed from urban consumer society; it was also new in its descriptive method, which did not consist of a painted or sculpted representation of the object the artist had chosen—easel painting had had its day!—but rather in the presentation of the object itself. Pierre Restany described this radical act of appropriating reality as a “poetic recycling of the urban, industrial, and advertising real.”
To inaugurate her new space at 4 rue Henri-Fazy (right next to her first gallery), Sonia Zannettacci is presenting an exhibition bringing together these artists, who, while employing different visual languages, shared the same desire to remove the object from its everyday context: Arman, César, Christo, Dufrêne, Klein, Niki de Saint Phalle, Rotella, Spoerri, Tinguely, and Villeglé.
Related to the exhibition:
Thursday, September 17 at 11:30 a.m. – Ciné 17
Screening of films on New Realism presented by poet Carmen Campo Real