César joined the movement of Nouveau Réalisme in the 1960s alongside Arman, Yves Klein, and Jean Tinguely. Finding reality in the everyday cycle of consumption and disposal, scrap yards, and mass production, the artists of Nouveau Réalisme recycled ordinary objects into works of art, often imbued with questions and critiques of contemporary society. As the exhibition title suggests, César transformed the conventional concept of sculpture through his distinctive technique of compression.
This exhibition was the first in Japan to present a comprehensive survey of César’s work, tracing his artistic development from his early sculptures of the late 1940s to the unique compressed forms for which he became renowned, in which the material culture of modern society was condensed into a single mass. César traveled to Japan for the exhibition and created several compression works, including Compression TOKYO (1982) and Yes Coke (1982), made from crushed automobiles and beverage cans. He also produced Homage to Seibu (1982), incorporating the logo of the Seibu Department Stores. All three works are now in the collection of the Sezon Museum of Modern Art.