Arman
© Philipp Hugues Bonan
«I believe that in the desire to accumulate there is a need for security, and in destruction, the cutting off, there is the will to stop time.»
© Philipp Hugues Bonan
Arman (Armand Pierre Fernandez), a French multidisciplinary artist famous for his accumulations, was born on November 17, 1928 in Nice. He passed away in New York on October 22, 2005.
His father, a flea market seller and an amateur of art and music, instilled in his son a love of art. Arman began painting at the age of 10. He studied at the Ecole des Arts Décoratifs in Nice from 1946 to 1949. Then, Arman’s interest in the philosophies and arts of the Far East led him to the Ecole du Louvre in Paris in 1949. At the age of 19, Arman became friends with Yves Klein and Claude Pascal, whom he met at a judo school in Nice. The trio of friends formed the group Triangle in 1950.
The artist, influenced by the works of Kurt Schwitters and Jackson Pollock, experimented with the technique of the stamp and exhibited the first «Cachets» in Paris in 1956.
On the cover of a 1958 catalogue, following a mistake, «Armand» becomes «Arman», a name he kept for the rest of his life. The year 1959 saw the beginning of the «Accumulations» of objects.
In 1960, Arman was one of the founding members of the group of New Realists, along with Yves Klein, César, Martial Raysse and also Pierre Restany as a theorist. His first exhibition in New York took place in 1961. The artist used new materials such as polyester and plexiglass. In 1962 Arman created his first «Combustions». Arman’s accumulations gather large quantities of identical objects fused into plexiglass.
