Raymond Hains

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Raymond Hains (Dinard, 1926 - Paris, October 28, 2005) was a French artist and photographer.

In the 1940s, he began making photos inspired by Surrealism using mirrors or taken through deforming glass.

In the 1950s, he joined with Jacques de la Villeglé in using collage and found/ripped posters from street advertisements in creating Ultra-Lettrist psychogeographical hypergraphics.

This Neoist Dada spirit would inform the rest of his career. In 1960, he signed the manifesto of Nouveau Réalisme with Jacques de la Villeglé and Yves Klein; they would later be joined by artists Daniel Spoerri, Arman and Martial Raysse. The "New Realism" movement would -- like Pop art in New York -- praise and criticize the mass-produced consumer object in assemblages and installations.

Hains won the Kurt Schwitters prize in 1997.