... Today realistic art exists but it is viewed snobbishly because it is considered episodic and illustrative. There is all our hyper-realism, which I find interesting but which is taboo for the élite. Few are in favour of a new and real avant-guarde, toughly realistic and violently anti-academic. Therefore I much admire hyper-realism because it is the answer to all those vacuities.

Federico Zeri
((from "Shelling Peas" by Zeri and D'Agostini, A. Mondodori, ed. Oct. 1990)