Pierre Restany's Amazon Journal Published by Wildproject

Wildproject has published an unpublished manuscript by Pierre Restany (1930-2003), the theorist of Nouveau Réalisme. The book is the travel diary Restany kept during a summer 1978 expedition up the Rio Negro in the Amazon, at the invitation of Brazilian painter Frans Krajcberg. The journal blends initiatory quest, eco-tourism, visual anthropology, and diplomatic mission. Restany, a city dweller, marvels at the lush yet threatened nature and records a violent crescendo of awareness, criticizing both indigenous communities and military and religious administrations. Paradoxically, this sensory shock with overpowering nature confirms his earlier Nouveau Réaliste intuition that the city is a composite ecosystem. He writes: 'Original nature must be exalted... but this fixation cannot erase another equally fundamental reality, that of the inescapable industrial and urban acquisition. Urban civilization... has created a modern sense of nature, its exact symmetrical counterpart... They exist in the absoluteness of their two immanences. This coexistence is the conclusive mark of our First Millennium.' The review by Dorothée Dupuis notes that Restany's lucidity as an enfant terrible prevents any attempt to greenwash his figure.