Upcoming Arman exhibitions:

- Connaught Brown Gallery, London, England  May 18th to June 19th, 2008

Connaught Brown Catalogue Cover

CATALOG INTRODUCTION :

Regarded as one of the most prolific and inventive artists of the late 20th century, Arman’s vast artist output ranges from drawings, prints, paintings, public sculptures and of course his famous “accumulations” of found objects.

An integral part of the “Nouveau Réalisme” movement of the 1960’s , Arman, alongside peers Tinguely, Spoerri, Christo and great friend Yves Klein, sought to discover new horizons within the everyday. The Nouveaux Réalistes; taking their lead from Dada and Surrealism, constituted a vital stage in the evolution of object art; glorified most famously by the American Pop artists of the sixties.

These young European artists asserted “New Realism equals new, sensitive, perceptive approaches to the real” and developed astonishing techniques within painting, collage and assemblage. Inspired by artists such as Poliakoff, Pollock, Werckman and especially German Dadaist Kurt Schwitters, Arman proved especially eloquent in examining the artistic possibilities of everyday objects; elevating the banal to the aesthetic.

During the early stages of his carrer, Arman created artworks characterized by their startling use of the objects. Interested in the three natural stages of a material’s development : production, consumption and destruction, Arman made what he described as “accumulations”, “coupes” and “colères”. By collecting, assembling, smashing, slicing and burning, he could explore the various worlds of an object with dramatic effect.

From the mid 1980’s especially, Arman became more significantly preoccupied with painting and paint itself. He created large scale accumulations of paintbrushes entitled “brush paintings” and assemblages of paint tubes; their contents squeezed out directly into rhythmically arranged blobs. Arman strove to invest his work with a new dynamic by approaching existing techniques from the perspective of painting. The resultant pieces constitute playful, intriguing and complex explorations into what it means to be a painter.

By nature all painting is an accumulation of brush strokes. When Arman paints, this accumulation takes on entirely new meaning. Thick wide brushstrokes of intense color travel across the canvas towards heavily laden paintbrushes, where the artist, with astonishing imagination, has simply left the device used to create the mark. Similarly, lines of thick paint squeezed directly from the tube, lead to where Arman has left the emptied, scrunched container on the canvas. Arman not only accumulates the brushtrokes and marks of the painter, he gathers the objects associated with the medium. Literally letting go at the point that seems most natural, he creates a level of visibility within painting never previously achieved.

The inclusion of smashed violins, guitars and bicycles alongside brushes and tubes creates yet another level of play on the term ‘painter’. Artists have always been concerned with painting objects, most usually with the aim of representation. Arman however ‘paints’ the object both figuratively and literally. By physically fixing it onto the canvas and then painting on top, the object becomes an integral component within its own depiction; the wildly expressive brushstrokes generating harmony across the surface of the composition. By painting about and on his objects, Arman finds within them an alternative yet seemingly entirely natural state of existence.

Through his unique use of paint and interplay on the objects associated with it, Arman redefines the term painter and shatters the traditional confines of the medium. Object as subject, painting of paint; Arman makes painting a truth without artifice.

- Guy Pieters Gallery,  Knokke-Zoute, Belgium March 22-April 21st, 2008
 "Color Full" and "Bronze Polychrome"

Knokke-Zoute exhibition Cover

- Chicago Art Fair, April 23-28, 2008
    Represented by the Daniel Templon Galerie