Raymond Hains

French visual and conceptual artist Raymond Hains explores ideas around philosophy, literature, and linguistics in his innovative and playfully humorous works. Drawing on the influence of pre-war Dada and Surrealism in his early short films and photographs, he went on to produce sculptures, found-object installations, and the décollages for which he is best known. These affiches lacerées, such as Hommage à Mirò (1975) or Nixon Hitler (1973), consist of layered fragments of torn posters recovered from the streets, without any additional interventions by Hains himself. One of the founding members of the Nouveau Réalisme in 1960 alongside Yves Klein and Jacques Villeglé, Hains was opposed to the “emptiness” and subjectivity of Abstract Expressionism, preferring to find meaning in the mundanity of everyday objects, notably the numerous Matchbox works he created like Saffa (1974).