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French painter, born in Golf-Juan, near Nice, self-taught. His early works (1954) were assemblages which included plastic objects. This appropriation of prefabricated materials led to his association with the Nouveau Réalisme movement. This technique would also be used by the Pop artists, who likewise used objects and objects and images deriving from advertising. In 1961 at the Paris Biennale he presented a work entitled Hygiène de la Vision, which seemed to parody the shop window displays of cheap articles. Raysse exhibited a world, new, antiseptic and modern. He later used continuously flashing electric lights as living colours in sculptures recalling urban signs. During the 1960s Raysse added neon tubes to Cranach and Ingres, drew fluorescent lips to a model and started new creations with neon tubes. Raysse was to become famous with his combinations on canvas, his assemblies in space made of paintings, photos, wood, iron and neon tubes. He created prototypes as a way to elevate bad taste and falsity to the level of art. Retrospectives include the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, in 1981 and the Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien, in Vienna. He participated in "Documenta" 9 in Kassel. Bibliography: Martial Raysse, maître et esclave de l'imagination (Amsterdam, Stedelijk Museum, 1965); D. Semin, Martial Raysse, Musée Nationale du Jeu de Paume, Paris, 1992.

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