"Nothing is objective for the objectors. […] An object is thus defined as an encounter between two projections: one calling out to us, the other striking us. The objectors, as I define them, sit at the focal point of this encounter. [...] Faced with their work, we find ourselves in the same situation, each surprised to see the world."
Alain Jouffroy, Les Objecteurs, 1965[1]
2026 marks 60 years since the Les Objecteurs exhibition curated by the art critic Alain Jouffroy in three Paris art galleries in early 1966. Presenting Arman (1928-2005), Tetsumi Kudo (1935-1990), Daniel Pommereulle (1937-2003), Jean-Pierre Raynaud (1939) and Daniel Spoerri (1930-2024), this exhibition showcased a radical way of engaging objects in art, not as a material or sculpture, but as a medium for thought, for a corrosive approach to reality.
Galerie Christophe Gaillard is recreating this historic event with additional pieces by established artists on the French art scene (Pierre Ardouvin, 1955; Eric Baudart, 1972; Anita Molinero, 1953) and the young generation with its contemporary take on the object (David Douard, 1983; Mimosa Echard, 1986). These dialogues underline the continuing relevance of the critic's intuition, imbuing it with new meaning[2].
In the mid-1960s, Jouffroy sought to define a new trend in French artistic creation in response to Nouveau Réalisme (new realism) founded by Pierre Restany five years earlier; a movement encompassing the work of Arman and Spoerri. He simultaneously organised three exhibitions, showcasing work by Raynaud at Jean Larcade's gallery, work by Pommereulle at Galerie Jacqueline Ranson and work by Arman, Kudo and Spoerri at Galerie J.
"These artists strive to create a new art form, where object and thought are absolute equals; their objects do not amount to a trivial parody of painting but, rather, seek to capture and transmit thought from within reality itself, within the fabric of life."
Amid the rapid rise of consumerism, these artists "abandoned" traditional media to create objects. Their focus was the everyday and urban materials. Now a well-established aspect of 1960s art history, the assertion that art and life were one and the same dominated discussions among artists, critics and art lovers at the time, overseen by the symbolic figurehead of Marcel Duchamp who quit painting in 1923 to highlight the supremacy of mental art forms - a position pioneered by Jouffroy. In contrast to painting and sculpture's "monopoly over contemplation", these young plastic artists shared Duchamp's non-retinal concept of art.
The term "objectors" recalls the etymology of the word "object", from the Latin objectum, meaning "something placed before", "anything that affects the senses, particularly sight", or even "anything that presents itself to thought, providing an occasion or material for the activity of the mind". In the literal sense, objectors are those who invent and make objects, placing them in our field of vision as material for reflection. The noun still commonly refers to "those who make objections", and conscientious objectors who refuse to fulfil their military obligations on political or philosophical grounds - a stance that would have resonated immediately in the post-war period, or during the decolonisation wars. The word also has anti-establishment and intellectual connotations, denoting radical opinion and freedom of thought.
"Each is alone, entirely alone, in their pursuit," said Jouffroy about objectors. Unique and rebellious, it was this very freedom and spirit that brought them together in a shared avant-garde movement. In Paris, amid the popular celebration of a consumerist society and industrial objects, the aggression and cruelty of the objectors' work was startling. Each invented a language to make sense of the world as it was.
Arman accumulated or destroyed objects by the dozen. "The biting acidity of irony triumphed within him over primal rebellions; this is what makes his objects dazzle," wrote Jouffroy. Spoerri petrified everyday objects with his Tableaux-Pièges (trap pictures) and invented "an order of new meaning" with his gratingly humorous Détrompe-l'œil (anti-illusionist pictures). "Through a strange process [...] life without art which inspires Spoerri's œuvre becomes an art of living in art." Meanwhile, Kudo enclosed symbolic objects in dice-like boxes, painting a disillusioned portrait of our modern humanity, in a prison of its own making. More acerbic, this is the power of Raynaud's Psycho-objets (psycho-objects) and Tirs (shots) released 60 years later. "As silent as tombstones, J.-P. Raynaud's objects appear to evoke the dreams of prisoners." Their sterilised universe shines a ruthless clarity on the world, calling on us to evade our mental confinements. The work of objectors acts as a detonator. Thus, Pommereulle's combinations of objects and blades become charged with a dangerous and menacing energy, prompting us to respond. "It is as though Pommereulle deliberately sought to minimise alterations in order to maximise awareness," opined Jouffroy.
Today, the artistic use of objects does not carry the same aesthetic, political and cultural implications as it did in the era of objectors. Yet their name continues to evoke the lineages of contemporary artists whose practices resonate with those collected in 1965 by Jouffroy. Since 1995, Anita Molinero has worked with various plastics, scraps of modern productivity, objects (bins, road barriers, headlights, etc.) and factory materials (foam, resin, polystyrene, etc.) which she transforms and assembles. Burnt, compressed and melted, her sculptures reflect the instability of our time while suggesting the possibility of emancipation through fiction. Similarly, Pierre Ardouvin and Eric Baudart engage with the domestic and familial environment. Making everyday objects the raw material of his assemblies and installations, Ardouvin appeals to our collective memory, imbuing reality with a troubling strangeness. Meanwhile, Baudart makes use of shifts and displacements, profoundly altering our perception of the most trivial objects with his use of space and original layouts, revealing a disconcerting simplicity.
For the young generation, the object can no longer be conceived as an artistic technique without hybridisation and a renewed emphasis on the physical sensations of the body. In his sculptures, David Douard indiscriminately combines street finds with industrial materials, fragments of poems and technological media which he shapes into undulating, organic forms. Poetic and cruel, his language redefines an ever-evolving space. Similarly, Mimosa Echard appropriates and subverts manufactured objects through processes of proliferation, fusing the living and artificial, the human and synthetic, the vegetal and digital to the point of collapsing all boundaries. From 1966 to 2026, the work of objectors "calls out to" and "strikes" the thoughts of observers, placing itself "inside the inner perspective of things".
Armance Léger
[1] All quotations are from Alain Jouffroy, taken from the catalogue Les Objecteurs (1965), republished by the author in Les Pré-voyants, Brussels, La connaissance, 1974.
[2] In 2000, Alain Jouffroy organised a reinterpretation of the exhibition in Cherbourg and Dole: 'Objecteurs / Artmakers', featuring works by Jérôme Basserode, Alain Bublex, Claude Closky, Frédéric Coupet, Michel Guet and Monique Le Houelleur.
