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Armand Pierre Fernandez
Armand Fernandez was born in Nice in 1928, son of Marthe Jecquet and Antoine, amateur painter gifted with great energy and creativeness.
Since the age of ten he shows his precocious genius inventing a system of serial peinture based on a bicycle wheel.
The paysages painted with this technique are sold by his father in the brocantage shop which supports Arman’s family.
Taken his degree at Decorative Art School in Nice, he moves to Paris where he attends Louvre School.
Here he meets Pierre Restany and Yves Klein with whom he forms an inseparable trio.
In this period his pruduction is connected to a surrealistic painture, then he has been influenced by De Stael and Kurt Schwitters and Pollock, inclined in gestural expressiveness and in the application of everyday life’s objects and matherials.
The first Acculations are created in 1959. The following year in Milan he subscribes Restany’s Manifesto of Nouveau Réalisme.
In the meanwhile he presents a lot of solo exhibitions in Milan ( Galleria Apollinaire, 1959 and Galleria Schwarz, 1961), in Dusseldorf and Los Angeles ( Dwan Gallery, 1962).
He also participates to the exposition of Art of the Assemblage in New York (MoMA, 1961).
Between 1963 and 1965 he produces the first Combustions and presents a solo exhibition in Sidney Janis’ Gallery in N.Y.
He exposes in Minneapolis Walker Art Center (1964) and in Amsterdam Stedelijk Museum (1964).
In 1964 polyester, used before just as bonding agent, becomes protagonist in the composition of a new kind of art works called Inclusions.
The first accumulations of color tubes enclosed by polyester date back to 1966, when the Palais des Beaux-Arts of Bruxelles dedicates him a retrospective and other personal expositions take place in Turin, Venice, Nice and Bruxelles.
In 1968 h participates to the Biennial of Venice and to Documenta in Kassel. The first accumulations in cement date back to the first Seventies.
In these years lots of solo exhibitions take place in all over the world.
1974 - Jolla Museum in Los Angeles (exposition then repeated by other four American museum)
1975 - Museé de Art Moderne in Paris
1976 - Biennial of Venice
1977 - Ulrich Museum of Arts, Wichita, Kansas
1978 - Galerie Beaubourg, Paris
In 1980 he lives in Japan where he applies himself to large wall sculptures made of accumulated objects.
In 1984 the French Ministry of Culture commissions him a memorial monument for the 200th anniversary of French Revolution, that is installed in the Elysée.
Also in these years the expositive activity is very intense:
1985 - Retrospective in Seibu Museum of Art of Tokyo and in Walker Hill Center of Seul
1986- Retrospective in Pavillon Wed, Zurich
1988 - Musèe d'Art Contemporain in Nimes
In spite of his great international notoriety and success, in the 90s Arman continues his work with the same untiring devotion and coherence.
In 1990 he creates a serie of scultures called Atlantis, experimenting a procedure of bronze fusion which made it appear deteriorated by a long immersion in see water.
In 1991 he constructs works with bicycles joined to the canvas.
In 1995 he accumulates objects as bills, coffeepots, sawed wood and saws.
His exhibitions continue uninterruptedly:
1991 – Huston Museum of Fine Arts, Brooklyn Museum and Detroit Institute of Arts
1998 - Retrospective in Musée de Jeu de Paume, Paris
2001 - Retrospective in Musée d'Art Moderne et Contemporain de Nice.
2003 – Museum of Comtemporary Art of Teheran, Iran
2004 -Opere Recenti, Centro d’Arte Cultura and Bugno Art Gallery, Venice
Arman died in New York in 2005.