Arman 1986 - Painting On Canvas With Violin Pieces And Applied Brushes.

Arman Fernandez (Nice 1928-2005), a leading exponent and founder, together with Yves Klein, Daniel Spoerri, Jean Tinguely, Raymond Hains and the critic Pierre Restany, of Nouveau Rèalisme defined as a "new perceptive approach to reality".
The work we are offering you is registered at the Arman Studio Archives in New York with the number APA# 8021.04.178 and on the back it bears the stamp and cartouche of the Archives Denyse Durand Ruel.
Pieces of violin and numerous brushes were applied to the painted canvas, which in turn was enclosed in a plexiglass case. On the back signed and dated Arman -86-.

The son of an antique dealer and a cellist, Arman trained at the École Nationale des Arts Décoratifs in Nice and the École du Louvre in Paris, where he made his debut with a series of abstract paintings. In 1954 he moved away from traditional painting to dedicate himself to Cachets, works composed of obsessively repeated stamps on paper, inspired by the works of Kurt Schwitters and the rhythms of Jackson Pollock's panels.
Arman's specific artistic practice consists in appropriating the waste of society, everyday objects, and reconfiguring them with a new meaning through a dramatic, violent action that is both gestural and pictorial. The object is dismembered, broken or burned to exemplify the self-destructive nature of consumer society. The drama is then increased, poetically, by the pictorial intervention, which confirms and accentuates the violence of the gesture and reconfigures the object with a new language. What links all his works are precisely the objects, the absolute protagonists of his art. We are in the early 60s, in fact, when his style evolves and Arman realizes his nature as an artist exponent of the Nouveau Réalisme movement. The objects themselves become the work of art, as had already happened in the Dada period, from which however there is a conceptual detachment. They are not simply exhibited as a desecrating symbol of artistic tradition, but subjected to a destructive and invasive action, the same that society exercises on the values ​​and vision of contemporary man.
Between the 1980s and 1990s Arman returned to painting in a literal way, creating a series of works in which squeezed tubes and brushes become an integral part of the canvas.
In 1959 Arman exhibited for the first time in Milan at the Apollinaire gallery.
In 1961 Arman exhibited at the Schwarz gallery in Milan.
In 1962 he participated in the exhibition “The New Realism”, at the Sidney Janis Gallery in New York, where he was invited for his first solo show at the gallery the following year.
Between 1959 and 1965, Arman created a series of works of epochal value that elevated the everyday, the urban and modern to privileged subjects of his poetics, bringing his artistic reflection to maturity: “Allures”, are canvases that bear the imprints of objects immersed in color, “Accumulations”, collections of everyday objects selected by category, “Poubelles”, collections of waste, debris, residues, “Coupes” objects sectioned in two, “Colères”, tools and broken, broken and burned things, then reassembled on wooden panels. Famous for having made everyday life and the objects taken from it his own palette of colors, Arman institutionalizes the destructive act as an act of artistic creativity, proposing to the public a different idea of ​​aesthetic and artistic beauty. His creations are populated by musical instruments, bicycles, watches, cars, coins and shoes.
In 1987 he participated in Documenta VIII in Kassel with the work Descente aux enfers.
He was awarded the title of Chevalier of the Legion of Honor by President Mitterrand in 1989.