Arman ou Armand Fernandez (1928-2005)

(born Armand Pierre Fernandez), French-American, 1928–2005, Nice, France, was an early proponent of accumulation and scatter art. In 1959, he began displaying collections of objects in Plexiglas cases and creating installations of strewn garbage, which he called “Poubelles,” or “trash bins.” He also welded identical objects together to create larger sculptural pieces. In 1961, along with Yves Klein, Jean Tinguely, Jacques Villeglé, art critic Pierre Restany, and others, Arman founded Nouveau Réalisme, a group interested in new approaches to the concept of “reality.” Spending time in New York in the 1960s, Arman adopted destruction as a strategy for creating something new—slicing, burning, and smashing objects such as bronze statues and musical instruments to mount on canvas. Andy Warhol owned two of Arman’s Poubelles, and Arman appears in the Warhol’s 1964 film Dinner at Daley’s.