Arman

Arman's father, Antonio Fernandez, an antiques dealer from Nice, was also an amateur artist, photographer, and cellist. From his father, Arman learned oil painting and photography.[2] After receiving his bachelor's degree in philosophy and mathematics in 1946, Arman began studying at the École Nationale des Arts Décoratifs in Nice.[3] He also studied judo at a police school in Nice, where he met Yves Klein and Claude Pascal. The trio bonded closely on a subsequent hitch-hiking tour around Europe.[2]

Completing his studies in 1949, Arman enrolled as a student at the École du Louvre in Paris,[2] where he concentrated on the study of archaeology and Asian art. In 1951, he became a teacher at the Bushido Kai Judo Club in Madrid, Spain.[2] In 1952, he served in the French military, completing his tour of duty as a medical orderly during the Indo-China War.[2]

Avalanch (1990), Tel Aviv University campus

Music Power No. 2 (1986), Israel Conservatory of Music, Tel Aviv

Early on, it was apparent that Arman's concept of the accumulation of vast quantities of similar objects was to remain a significant component of his art.[3] He had originally focused more attention on his abstract paintings, considering them to be of more consequence than his early accumulations of rubber stamps. In 1962, he began welding together Accumulations of similar kinds of metal objects, such as watches or axes.[1]

Inspired by an exhibition for the German Dadaist Kurt Schwitters in 1954, Arman began working on Cachets, his first major artistic undertaking.[2] At his third solo exhibition held in Paris's Galerie Iris Clert in 1958, Arman showed some of his first 2D accumulations he called Cachets. These rubber stamp marks on paper and fabric proved a success and provided a change of course in his career.[2]

At the time, he was signing only with his first name as an homage to Van Gogh, who also signed his works with his first name, "Vincent". In 1957, Arman chose to change his name from "Armand" to "Arman". On January 31, 1973, upon becoming a citizen of the United States, he took the American civil name, "Armand Pierre Arman", but continued to use "Arman" as his public persona.[2]

From 1959 to 1962, Arman developed his most recognizable style, beginning with his two most renowned concepts: Accumulations and Poubelles (French for "trash bins"). Accumulations were collections of commonplace and similar objects which he arranged within transparent polyester castings, or within Plexiglas cases. His first welded Accumulations were created in 1962.[2][1]

The Poubelles were collections of strewn refuse. In 1960, he filled the Iris Clert Gallery in Paris with trash, creating Le Plein (The Full) as a counterpoint to an exhibition called Le Vide (The Void) at the same gallery two years earlier by his friend Yves Klein.[3]

In October 1960, Arman, Yves Klein, François Dufrêne, Raymond Hains, Martial Raysse, Daniel Spoerri, Jean Tinguely, Jacques Villeglé, and art critic and philosopher Pierre Restany founded the Nouveau Réalisme group. Joined later by Cesar, Mimmo Rotella, Niki de Saint Phalle, and Christo, the group of young artists defined themselves as bearing in common their "new perspective approaches of reality". They were reassessing the concept of art and the artist for a 20th-century consumer society by reasserting humanistic ideals in the face of industrial expansion. Arman also became affiliated with the ZERO art movement based in Germany.[2]

In 1961, Arman made his debut in the United States, the country which was to become his second home. During this period, he explored creation via destruction. The Coupes (Cuts) and the Colères (Angers) featured sliced, burned, or smashed objects arranged on canvas, often using objects with a strong "identity" such as musical instruments (mainly violins and saxophones) or bronze statues.[3]

Eros, Inside Eros (1986) in the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden

The grave of Arman, Pere Lachaise Cemetery, Paris

El mensajero, Santiago, Chile

Arman can be seen in Andy Warhol's film Dinner at Daley's, a documentation of a dinner performance by the Fluxus artist Daniel Spoerri that Warhol filmed on March 5, 1964. Throughout the portrait-screen-test film, Arman sits in profile, looking down, appearing to be entranced in his reading, seemingly unaware of Warhol's camera, only making small gestures, rubbing his eyes, and licking the corner of his mouth. He remained silent, eyes gazing over the pages of what seemed to be a newspaper, in this four-minute, 16mm black-and-white reel. Warhol owned two of Arman's Poubelles and another accumulation called Amphetamines, which were sold at Sotheby's auction of the Andy Warhol Collection in May 1988.[2]

Fascinated with the scene in New York City, Arman took up part-time residency there from his home in Nice in 1961, after his first exhibition at the Cordier Warren Gallery.[2] In the city, he met Marcel Duchamp at a dinner given by the artist and collector William Copley. First living at the Chelsea Hotel and later in Church street, while keeping a studio in Bowery, then in TriBeCa, Arman began work on large public sculptures.[2]

There were varied expressions of the Accumulations, including tools, watches, clocks, furniture, automobile parts, jewelry, and musical instruments in various stages of dismemberment. Musical instruments, specifically the strings[4] and bronze, through his collaboration with a foundry in Normandy, France, became a major theme in Arman's work.[2]

Of Arman's Accumulations, one of the largest is Long Term Parking,[5][6] which is on permanent display at the Château de Montcel in Jouy-en-Josas, France. Completed in 1982, this 60-foot (18 m) high sculpture consists of 60 mostly French cars set in 40,000 pounds (18,000 kg) of concrete. Just as ambitious was his 1995 work Hope for Peace,[7] which was specially commissioned by the Lebanese government to commemorate 50 years of their military's service. Standing in once war-torn Beirut, the 32-metre (105 ft) monument consists of 83 tanks and military vehicles.[2]

In 1953, Arman married electronic music composer Eliane Radigue and had two daughters, Marion (1951) and Anne (1953) and one son, Yves Arman (1954–1989). In 1971, he married Corice Canton, with whom he had one daughter, Yasmine (1982) and one son, Philippe (1987). In 1989, he had his sixth and last child, Yves Cesar Arman, son of Carrole Cesar.

After Arman's death in New York in 2005, some of his ashes were buried at the Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris in 2008.[8]

Music accumulation (1971), concrete and iron structure, Parco Sempione, Milan.[9] Photo by Paolo Monti.

[2]

Arman - Speaking Portraits

• Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, California
• Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC[10]
• Ulrich Museum of Art, Wichita, Kansas
• Harvard Art Museum, Cambridge, Massachusetts
• The Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, Michigan
• Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota
• Laumeier Sculpture Park, St. Louis, Missouri
• Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, St. Louis, Missouri
• Saint Louis Art Museum, St. Louis, Missouri
• Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, New York
• The Museum of Modern Art, New York
• Allen Art Museum, Oberlin College, Ohio
• Bellevue Art Museum, Bellevue, Washington
• Boca Raton Museum of Art, Boca Raton, Florida

• Galenson, David, "Arman and the Art of the Object," Huffington Post, 01/25/11.
• Johnson, Ken, "Art in Review: Arman-- 'A Survey: 1954-2002'," The New York Times, 01/24/13.

• Chalumeau, Jean-Luc and Pierre Restany (preface), Arman: Shooting Colors, Paris, France: Éditions de la Différence, Autre Musée/Grandes Monographies, 1989 ISBN 978-2729104672
• Kuspit, Donald. Monochrome Accumulations 1986—1989. Stockholm: A. H. Graphik, 1990 ISBN 9789179709518
• Otmezguine, Jane and Marc Moreau, in collaboration with Corice Arman. Estampes. Paris: Éditions Marval, 1990
• Durand-Ruel, Denyse. Arman - Vol. II: 1960 à 1962. Paris: Éditions de la Différence, 1991
• Durand-Ruel, Denyse. Arman - Vol. III: 1963 à 1965. Paris: Éditions de la Différence, 1994
• Bouhours, Jean-Michel (director), Arman exhibition catalogue, Paris: Centre Georges Pompidou, 2010

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Arman (artist).

• Arman original website
• Arman new site
• Arman at the Museum of Modern Art
• Arman in Artcyclopedia
• Foundation A.R.M.A.N. website
• Oral history interview with Arman, 1968 Apr. 22 from the Smithsonian Archives of American Art
• Arman in Les Baux de Provence (English)
• virtual museum
• Arman in American public collections, on the French Sculpture Census website