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Artist Index Arman (November 17, 1928–October 22, 2005) was a French artist.[1] Born Armand, Pierre Fernandez in Nice, France, Arman is a painter who moved from using the objects as paintbrushes ("allures d'objet") to using them as the painting itself. He is best known for his "accumulations" and destruction/recomposition of objects.
Arman's father, Antonio Fernandez, an antiques dealer in Nice, was also an amateur artist, photographer, and cellist. From his father, Arman learned oil painting and photography. After receiving his bachelor's degree in philosophy and mathematics in 1946, Arman began studying at the École Nationale des Arts Décoratifs in Nice. He also started 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. Completing his studies in 1949, Arman enrolled as a student at the École du Louvre in Paris, where he concentrated on the study of archaeology and oriental art. In 1951, he became a teacher at the Bushido Kai Judo Club in Madrid. During this time he also served in the French military, completing his tour of duty as a medical orderly during the Indo-China War. Early career Early on, it was apparent that Arman's concept of the accumulation of vast quantities of the same objects was to remain a significant component of his art. Ironically, he had originally focused more attention on his abstract paintings, considering them to be of more consequence than his early accumulations of stamps. Only when he witnessed viewer reaction to his first accumulation in 1959 did he fully recognize the power of such art. In 1962, he began welding together accumulations of the same kinds of metal objects, such as axes (as pictured below). Inspiration and name change Inspired by an exhibition for the German Dadaist, Kurt Schwitters, in 1954, Arman began working on "Cachets," his first major artistic undertaking. 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 stamps on paper and fabric proved a success and provided an important change of course for the young artist's career. At the time, he was signing with his first name as an homage to Van Gogh, who also signed his works with his first name, "Vincent." And, thus, 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.[2] Nevertheless, he continued to use "Arman" as his public persona. Evolution of work From 1959 to 1962, Arman developed his most recognizable style, beginning with his two most renowned concepts: "Accumulation" and "Poubelle" (French for "trash bin"). Accumulations were collections of common and identical objects which he arranged in polyester castings or within Plexiglas cases. His first welded accumulations were created in 1962.[2] The "Poubelles" were collections of strewn refuse. In 1960, he filled the Galerie Iris Clert in Paris with garbage, creating "Le Plein" ("Full Up") as a conterpoint of the exhibition called "Le Vide" at the same gallery two years earlier by his friend Yves Klein. These works began to garner the attention of the European art community. In October 1960, Arman, Yves Klein, François Dufrêne, Raymond Hains, Martial Raysse, Daniel Spoerri, Jean Tinguely and 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 the humanistic ideals in the face of industrial expansion. 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" and the "Colères" featured sliced, burned, or smashed objects arranged on canvas, often using objects with a strong "identity" such as music instruments or bronze statues. Arman and Warhol 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. Move to New York City Fascinated with the scene in New York, Arman took up part-time residency there in 1961, just after his first exhibition at the Cordier Warren Gallery. In the city, he met Marcel Duchamp at a dinner given by the artist and collector William Copley. In New York, first at the Chelsea Hotel and later at his studios on the Bowery, then in TriBeCa and in the South of France, Arman began work on ever-increasing ambitious projects. There were varied expansions of the accumulations, their content included tools, watches, clocks, furniture, automobile parts, jewelry, and, of course, musical instruments in various stages of dismemberment. Musical instruments, specifically the strings[3] and bronze, through his collaboration with a foundry in Normandy, France, became a major avenue in Arman's work. Of Arman's accumulations, one of the largest is Long Term Parking,[4][5] which is on permanent display at the Château de Montcel in Jouy-en-Josas, France. Completed in 1982, the sculpture is an 18-meter (60-ft.) high accumulation of 60 automobiles embedded in over 18,000kg (40,000 lbs.) of concrete. Just as ambitious was the 1995 work Hope for Peace,[6] which was specially commissioned by the Lebanese government to commemorate 50 years of the Lebanese military's service. Standing in once war-torn Beirut, the 32-meter (105-ft.) monument consists of 83 tanks and military vehicles. Personal life 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 then married Corice Canton and had one daughter, Yasmine (1982) and one son, Philippe (1987). In 1989, he had his sixth and last child, Yves Cesar Arman. After Arman's death in New York in 2005, part of his ashes were buried at the Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris in 2008. [7] Selected Exhibitions and awards 1964 * Arman, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Holland 1965 * Arman, Museum Hans Lange, Krefeld, Germany 1966 * Arman, Palais de Beaux-Arts, Brussels, Belgium 1967 * Arman, Palazzo Grassi, Venice, Italy 1969 * Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Holland 1970 * Arman, Modern Art Museum, Stockholm, Sweden 1974 * Arman, Salles romanes du Cloître Saint-Trophime, Musée Réattu, Arles, France 1975 * Arman: Objets Armés 1971-1974, Paris, Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, France 1976 * Arman, Artcurial auction house, Paris, France 1977 * Arman: Paintings and Sculptures, Ulrich Museum of Art, Wichita State University, Kansas 1978 * Arman, Veranneman Foundation, Kruishoutem, Belgium 1979 * Arman: Rétrospective, Centre d'Art et de Culture, Flaine, France 1980 * Arman, Veranneman Foundation, Kruishoutem, Belgium 1981 * Arman, Hessisches Landesmuseum, Darmstadt, Germany 1982 * Arman: Parade der Objekte: Retrospektive 1955-1982, *Kuntsmuseum, Sammlung Sprengel, Hanover, Germany; *Hessisches Landesmuseum, Darmstadt, Germany; *Tel Aviv Museum, Israel; *Kuntshalle, Tübingen, Germany; *Musée Picasso, Château Grimaldi, Antibes, France; *Musée d'Art Contemporain Dunkerque, France 1984 * Arman o L’Oggetto come Alfabeto: Retrospettiva 1955-1984, Museo Civico delle Belle Arti, Lugano, Switzerland * Arman, Museo d'Arte Moderna, Parma, Italy 1985 * Arman, Seibu Museum of Art, Tokyo, Japan; Walker Hill Art Center, Seoul, Korea 1986 * Arman: Retrospective, Wichita State University, Ulrich Museum of Art, Kansas 1991 * Arman in Italy, Fondazione Mudima, Milan, Italy 1992 * Il Giro di Arman, Associazionne Culturale Italo-Francese, Bologna, Italy 1994 * Le Ceramica di Arman, Museo Internazionale delle Ceramiche in Faenza, Faenze, Italy 1995 * Arman, Musée Royal de Mariemont, Mariemont-Chapelle, Belgium 1996 * Arman: The Exhibition of International Sculpture Master, Modern Art Gallery, Taichung, Taïwan 1998 * Arman, Musée du Jeu de Paume, Paris, France 1999 * Arman, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Israel * Arman, Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janiero, Brazil; Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand, São Paulo, Brazil 2000 * Arman—20 stations de l'objet, Couvent des Cordeliers, Paris, France 2000-01 * Arman: Werke auf Papier, Ludwig Museum, Coblenz, Germany 2001-02 * Arman: Through and Across Objects, Boca Raton Museum of Art, Florida 2002 * Arman: Works on Paper, Villa Haiss Museum, Zell, Germany 2003 * Awarded 2003 Sport Artist of the Year, The American Sport Art Museum and Archives, United States Sports Academy, Daphne, Alabama 2004 * Omaggio ad Arman Arte Silva, Sergno 2005 * Hommage a Arman, Galerie Anne Lettree, Paris 2006 * Arman—Subida al Cielo, Musée d' Art Moderne et d'Art Contemporain Nice, France 2008 * Arman, Palazzo Bricherasio, Turin 2010-2011 * Arman, a retrospective, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris Public collections in the U.S.A., selected * Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, California Books about Arman * Chalumeau, Jean-Luc and Pierre Restany (preface), Arman: Shooting Colors, Paris, France: Éditions de la Différence, Autre Musée/Grandes Monographies, 1989 References 1. ^ Arman biography Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/ ", Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License ==--==--==
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