ART CITIES:Paris-Arman

Arman’s greatest breakthrough came in the 1960, with his innovation of the “Accumulation”. Each “Accumulation” consisted of a large number of identical or similar objects: shoes, dolls, clocks, typewriters, saws, or any other manufactured object he might find in bulk at a flea market, arranged to cover a wooden box, and then sealed behind a Plexiglas sheet.

By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Galerie Danie Templon Archive

Galerie Daniel Templon presents a solo exhibition of work by Arman, focusing on “Accumulations”, one of the best known series produced by the leading figure of the Nouveau Réalisme Movement, the exhibition features 40 sculptures produced between 1960 and 1964. The “Accumulations” use repetition to achieve Abstraction, just as repeating a word eventually makes it lose its meaning, so juxtaposing dozens of identical shoes or violins reduces them to Abstract forms. Arman liked to say that he did not invent the “Accumulation”, but that it had found him. He contended that the concept was almost genetic, for it had been present in his subconscious since his childhood, when he inherited a family obsession with making collections of things. His initial artistic innovation lay in the demonstration that seriality, the simple repetition, transforms the appearances and meanings of familiar objects. “The perfect knowledge of the visual impact of objects is a part of my work”, he said. “I have a very simple theory. I have always pretended that objects themselves formed a self-composition. My composition consisted of allowing them to compose themselves”. The works are given the form of conventional paintings, their power as works of art stemming from the choice of objects, their colours and the variety of materials. The “Accumulations” explore the loss of individual identity and the neutralization of human interactions by consumer society, the violence of abundance and the aesthetics of rubbish, offering a “Premonition”, as Nicolas Bourriaud terms it, of our post-industrial landscape. His pioneering work brings to mind the creations of his Contemporary, Andy Warhol, while heralding the approach of a host of artists, including Damien Hirst, Thomas Hirschhorn, El Anatsui and Subodh Gupta.

Info: Galerie Daniel Templon, 30 rue Beaubourg, Paris, Duration: 27/2-6/4/16, Days & Hours: Mon-Sat 10:00-19:00, www.danieltemplon.com