Arman - Vicky David Gallery

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2. PLAN & INTRODUCTION TO THE EXHIBITION
This retrospective of more than 120 works, some of them of monumental scale, has been organized around
seven themes. Arman’s work cannot in fact be understood in terms of successive periods. For he frequently
returned to and revised the “procedures” of earlier times – accumulations, garbage cans, slicings, rages
and combustions – creating a living language that developed with every discovery or invention.
Arman loved objects, of that there can be no doubt. Yet he did not proceed by random or unstructured
accumulation, but marshalled them in the mode of the drawer or pigeonhole, characteristic of the craftsman.
He collected and he classified. Arman was passionate too about chess, and later about the game of
Go. While the first involves the capture or neutralization of the opponent’s most important pieces, Go
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requires the strategic mastery of a territory defined by a squared grid. This �
observation has led us to think
that the square or box (very evident in the Accumulations of collections for example) may be a key notion
for the understanding of “Armanian territory.”
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ENTRANCE
� La Victoire de Salemotrice, Accumulation Renault n°101, 1967
ROOM 1: FROM THE INFORMAL TO THE OBJECT
The first Cachets (rubber-stamp works) and Allures d’objet (Gait of the Object works) introduce the principle
of accumulation into Arman’s work, gradually legitimizing the presence of the object in the painted surface.
� Allure d'objets II, 1959
ROOM 2: POUBELLES AND LE PLEIN
The first Poubelles (garbage cans), the Portraits-robots, the exhibition “Le Plein” (1960), the Organic
Garbage Cans, the Grand Plein newyorkais (1972).
ROOM 3: THE CRITICAL MASS OF THE OBJECT
“A thousand droppers are more dropper than a single dropper.” Arman
The object is grasped in its seriality: multiple, identical and always different. Compressed into a given
volume, bereft of any poetic or aesthetic context, the accumulation is conceived as a portion of the real.
� Home sweet home, 1960
ROOM 4: COLÈRES AND COUPES
In 1961, Arman made his first Colères (Rages) physical performances inspired by the spirit of the martial
arts in which the artist transformed a found object or readymade by breaking it apart. The Coupe [Slicing]
is a cooler and more reflective procedure whereby the object itself can be made to undergo anamorphosis.
Included here are Arman’s first “explosion,” Die Wise Orchid (1963) – what remains of an MG sports car
after a spectacular performance at Essen in Germany in 1963, never before shown in Paris; and also
Conscious Vandalism, an environment resulting from a performance at the John Gibson Gallery in New York
in 1975.
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