The affichistes

Since the late 1940s many artists have turned their gaze towards the banal everyday environment. The transition from post-war posterity to consumer society brought radical changes in behaviour, in the way people related to everyday objects of consumption and in the urban landscape, where walls were transformed into advertising surfaces. In 1949, Hains and Villeglé retrieved their first posters from the street, torn by unknown hands. The field of action was huge and the rips were seen as informal artworks. They were followed by Dufrêne and Rotella and together formed the group known as the “affichistes” or “décollagistes”, part of the broader school of New Realists, whose theoretician Pierre Restany lauded the invention of “new approaches to the perception of reality”.

Art lovers with an sensibility for the urban and everyday started to include major works by Arman, César and Spoerri in their collections. The same collectors are now going after the previously overlooked décollagistes with a vengeance. As a result, the indices of Rotella, Hains and Villeglé, all close to the New Realists, have risen spectacularly: Mimmo Rotella’s index shot up by 300% between 2000 and 2005. Raymond Hains has gained 260% since 2005 and Villeglé is up by 110% since 2003.

Rotella was born in 1918 in Italy and became close to Hains, Villeglé and Dufrêne in 1960, though without signing up to the New Realism manifesto. He split his time between Paris and Milan and his works often come up in French and Italian auction houses, which host respectively 20% and 60% of sales of his work. However, some of his major pieces are found in the UK and American markets, which generate 55% of total turnover on just 10% of transactions. At the moment, collectors have to pay between EUR 10,000 and EUR 50,000 for a work from the 1960s, although some décollages can make a big splash at auction, as happened on November 28, 2006 when Frammenti was knocked down for EUR 100,000, ten times its estimate, at Christie’s Milan.
Raymond Hains has had similar recent success. In the summer, the Lempertz auction house put up the large format 1959 piece, Palissade de 4 planches, which sold for EUR 102,000, well above its EUR 30,000 estimate (June 2, 2006, Cologne). The Hains market is largely French-based with nearly 60% of transactions taking place in France. But it is the German market that handles most of the turnover (60% versus 20% in France). Lacerated posters and arrachages of the 1960s and 1970s trade for an average EUR 10,000-40,000. Hains’ index was already on the rise before the artist’s death in 2005. La Lessive Génie sold for five times its estimate at Sotheby’s London on October 25, 2005 (GBP 50,000, or EUR 73,800). At the same sale his friend Jacques de la Villeglé also set a record, for Avenue de la Liberté, Charenton which made GBP 75,000 or EUR 110,700. Villeglé also produced small format works, which can be picked up for around EUR 1,000: one of these came up for auction on October 26 this year (9.7 x 12cm) and sold for EUR 1,500 at Paris auctioneer Libert.

Wolf Vostell remained on the fringes of the New Realists and is a major figure in Fluxus, applying his principle of the equivalence between art and life. This independent path is reflected in his index, which was left behind by the wave of enthusiasm for other décollagistes and has fallen by 25% since 2000. While he formulated his theory of “décollage” in Paris, his market is more than 80% German and it is rare to see décollages offered for sale: on November 29, 2001, the Berlin auctioneer Villa sold one from 1961 entitled “K-C-RES”. The work sold for DM 10,000 or EUR 5,113. By way of comparison a François Dufrêne décollage from the same period would be two to four times as expensive. Dufrêne had a major sale last autumn and a piece in a roughly 30cm format went for GBP 13,000 (over EUR 19,000) at Sotheby’s London on October 25 2005. This has given a big boost to his index abroad, while results at French auction houses have remained unchanged. Last April 4, for instance, Cornette de Saint-Cyr knocked down an admittedly small format (26 cm) but historic work (dating from 1962) for just EUR 3,200.