Arman

Arman (1928 – 2005) was a French-born American artist.

Born Armand Fernandez in Nice, France, Arman was a painter who moved from using objects for the ink or paints traces they leave ("cachet", "allures object") to using them as the painting itself. He is best known for his "accumulations" and the destruction/recomposition of objects.

Inspired by the philosophies and aesthetics of Dadaism, the artist gathered forks, instruments, and teapots which he staged within vitrines. “I maintain that the expression of junk and objects has an intrinsic value, and I see no need to look for aesthetic forms in them and to adapt them to the colors of the palette,” he said of his subject matter.

In the early 1960s, the artist began a series of works aimed at critiquing of consumerism, waste, and mass production, known as poubelles, or trash cans.

The artist became a citizen of the United States in 1973, living in New York and working for Amnesty International for a number of years. Arman died on October 22, 2005, in New York, NY.

Today, his works are held in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., the Tate Gallery in London, and the Musée d’Art Moderne ed d’Art Contemporain in Nice, among others.

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