On Wednesday, 6th of June, PIASA will present during the"Modern and Contemporary Art" auction important artworks of Arman coming from the Jean Ferrero Collection (Nice)
Renault management commissions in 1967 Arman - a founding member of the French Nouveau Réalisme - to realize sculptures from mechanical pieces and tin plate material. Taking place in the program “Researches, art and industries” organized by Claude-Louis Renard, his seven years collaboration with Renault management gave birth, amongst others things, to an ensemble of sixty pieces known as “Accumulations Renault”. Thirty-three were shown at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam from March to April 1969.
Lot 77 - Arman (Armand Fernandez dit) (1928-2005)
Accumulation Renault, n°136, 1968
As art historian Catherine Francblin explained it, these pieces embody perfectly Arman’s ambition to find an art form including in its conception as well as in its realization the very principle of industrial production: “Objects composing these abstract murals loose by far all individual existence, all autonomy. There are no more objects, nor accumulation, but only large homogeneous surfaces recalling some monumental jewelry work shimmering under the light. It is only when one gets close to it, as if approaching a picture to appreciate its material substance or the painter’s skill, that shapes are differentiating from one another and that objects find their outlines back. These works prove what amazing power the “accumulative” method has in transforming objects. Surely, objects used by Arman are real. But melted into the whole of the wall, they create an uncertain global image confining to immateriality. Arman demonstrates once more that his work is not about object exaltation. That is to say, accumulation is not meant to shed light on the object; on the contrary, it is the object that allows him to show to the viewers an abstraction dear to him: quantity.”
Catherine Francblin, « Le régal d’Arman » in Ann Hindry, « Renault et l’art. Une épopée moderne », Hazan, Paris, 1999, pp. 68-69
