Arman - Vicky David Gallery

9
1971-1978
On 25 January 1971 Arman is divorced from Éliane Radigue, and on 13 July he marries Corice Canton
in Nice. Arman returns to the Poubelles (Garbage Can) series, embedding the trash in a single block
of transparent resin: he makes the series of Organic Garbage Cans, in this way avoiding the sorting that
had been necessary for reasons of conservation. These works testify to the explosive growth and
Americanisation of modern consumption. On 31 January 1972, Arman becomes an American citizen,
taking the name of Armand Pierre Arman. He begins to practice kung-fu with his wife Corice. Impressed
by its power and overconsumption, Arman decides to make a portrait of New York and invites his friend
the director Jean-Pierre Mirouze to come and make a film (Sanitation) on the city and its garbage. In 1974,
Arman works on several monumental schemes of architectural decoration and the Daniel Templon gallery
in Paris shows the Organic Garbage Cans. Lined up and standing on plinths, these exercise a cunningly
calculated attraction-repulsion on the viewer. In September-October 1974, a major touring retrospective
opens at the Museum of Contemporary Art in La Jolla (California) covering all Arman’s activity between
1958 and 1974. In January 1975, the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris exhibits Coupes and Colères
embedded in concrete under the title “Objets armés.” The concrete introduces constraints that require
a more carefully considered composition, while the work acquires a monumental, surreal character.
At 7 pm on 5 April 1975 Arman carries out the Conscious Vandalism action at the John Gibson Gallery,
New York, destroying the apartment contents carefully installed there. In 1977, the Centre Pompidou pays
tribute to the École de Nice at its opening and Arman has a crucial place in this exhibition.
1979-1988
Arman produces his first work directly related to architecture, Accumulation fallopienne. He decides
to give up the game of Go despite having attained the rank of 1st dan amateur, as the time and effort
required is too great. For the same reason, he sells his collection of African art, keeping only the more
important pieces. In 1982, Jean Hamon buys the Château du Montcel at Jouy-en-Josas; there Arman
creates Long Term Parking, a large volume of concrete, 2,000 tons in weight and 18 metres in height,
embedded in which are 64 cars. Arman, who has had more than 160 one-person shows across the world
in less than thirty years, sees his first French retrospective open at the Musée Picasso in Antibes in July
1983. The high point of the show is an accumulation of thirty guitars in bronze called À ma jolie,
a reworking of Picasso’s Cubist paintings of 1912. On 14 July 1984, À la République, a monumental piece
more than 3 metres high and 5 tons in weight, representing an accumulation of 200 flags, is inaugurated
in the hall of honour of the Élysée Palace, official residence of the French president. The Marisa del Re
Gallery shows The Day After, a combustion of a whole room of furniture in the Louis XV style, cast in bronze:
by the destruction of these domestic furnishings Arman, always fascinated by catastrophe, alluded to the
possible annihilation of our way of life. In 1985, he embarks on his first series of paint tubes on canvas,
and creates a gigantic accumulation of 2,300 washing-machine drums in his house at Vence. In June 1988,
Arman organises a happening on the stage of the People’s Palace on Tien An Men Square, in Beijing:
the Paris Opera Orchestra plays Beethoven’s String Quartet N° 16 as he smashes up musical instruments
to produce a rage piece, Beijing Quartet #1, the work being performed in tempo and in time. Organised for
the benefit of the “Save the Great Wall of China” campaign, this event was for Arman the most memorable
of his whole career.
1989-1997
In New York in 1989, Arman embarks on the series of Shooting Paintings and Dirty Paintings. The new
techniques respond to a desire to work again with paint, evident as early as 1987 (Brushing Paintings):
“I am a born-again painter,” he says. He works simultaneously on three series the Dirty Paintings, the
Color Scales and Under the Skin: these last are paintings that combine objects (squeezed paint tubes in
monochromatic compositions over other objects) and stratified layers of paint. He also begins the Atlantis
series, casting a variety of objects in bronze and including sand and other substances in the mould to give
the impression of a long immersion under the sea. Introduces the bicycle theme into the Shooting Paintings.
Especially prolific, he returns in New York to the theme of accumulations, developed as accumulations of
collections. Mémoires accumulés, a book of interviews with Arman by Otto Hahn, is published by Éditions
Belfond in October 1992. Alongside his sculptures he makes several variations on Van Gogh’s Starry Night
(1889), shown in 1994. The following year, the Georges-Philippe and Nathalie Vallois gallery shows
a selection of the Renault Accumulations. On 2 August, Hope for Peace, a monumental 32-metre high
accumulation that has 83 tanks embedded in 6,000 tons of concrete, is inaugurated in Beirut. Restany
remarks that the monument could not better express the spirit of this city battered by civil war.