27. 27AR RAYMOND HAINS (1926-2005) Daddy Daddy with Niki 1974 Signed, dated and titled on the back Torn posters mounted on canvas 130 x 113 cm Provenance Galerie Lara Vincy, Paris Private collection, Brussels Associated with Nouveau Réalisme, lyrical abstraction, Lettrism and Situationism, Hains crystallised the collective and social memory of his time, in particular by appropriating the skin of urban walls, alongside the other members of the Affichistes group, Mimmo Rottella, François Dufrêne and Jacques Villeglé. Hains had already photographed a number of advertising signs when, in 1949, he decided to become a "poster snatcher", anonymously tearing down posters that had been damaged by the wind and rain in the streets. He exhibited them for the first time in 1957 at the Colette Allendy gallery in Paris with Villeglé. Like Marcel Duchamp, who elevated everyday objects to the status of works of art, Hains substituted an art of predation for an art of creation, and in turn created ready-mades by giving new meaning to pre-existing objects devoid of meaning.