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Lot Essay
'Avec mes cachets, je me servais d'un objet pour inscrire une trace. C'est une des pistes de mon avancée vers l'objet', confie Arman dans ses Mémoires accumulées (cité in Mémoires accumulées, Entretiens avec Otto Hahn, Paris, 1998, p. 30). Dans ces années 1950, son oeuvre est empreinte d'une esthétique abstraite qui naît d'une ambivalence sémiotique : le tampon, qui signe la surface en un mode à la fois répétitif et erratique, la surcharge et manifeste l'humanité du geste face à la régularité mécanique. Percevant en tout matériau un pouvoir expressif, Arman dépasse la trivialité des objets qu'il s'approprie. Les 'accidents' auxquels il les soumet tendent à révéler la gestualité de l'artiste davantage qu'un souci esthétique. Sa pratique martiale guide son oeuvre graphique, entre maîtrise et spontanéité : l'évidente véhémence du geste voile une profonde poésie. Fifty five cachet incarne l'année 1957 où celui qui signait de son prénom 'Armand', par admiration pour Van Gogh, fut baptisé 'Arman' par un 'accident' typographique à la galerie Iris Clert.
'With my stamp works, I used an object to inscribe a mark. It was one of the paths I took to approach the object', confides Arman in his Mémoires Accumulés (quoted in Mémoires Accumulés, Entretiens avec Otto Hahn, Paris, 1998, p. 30). During the 1950s, his work was marked by an abstract aesthetic born from a semiotic ambivalence: the stamp, which marks the surface in a repetitive and erratic way, overloads it and reveals the humanity of the gesture in contrast to mechanical regularity. Perceiving expressive power in any material, Arman goes beyond the triviality of the objects he appropriates. The 'accidents' he submits them to tend to reveal the artist's physical movements rather than any aesthetic ambition. His practise of martial arts guided his graphical work, balancing control and spontaneity, the obvious vehemence of the gesture concealing a profound poetry. Fifty Five Cachet embodies the year 1957, in which the artist who signed using his first name 'Armand', out of admiration for Van Gogh, was baptised 'Arman' through a typographical 'accident' at the Galerie Iris Clert.
'With my stamp works, I used an object to inscribe a mark. It was one of the paths I took to approach the object', confides Arman in his Mémoires Accumulés (quoted in Mémoires Accumulés, Entretiens avec Otto Hahn, Paris, 1998, p. 30). During the 1950s, his work was marked by an abstract aesthetic born from a semiotic ambivalence: the stamp, which marks the surface in a repetitive and erratic way, overloads it and reveals the humanity of the gesture in contrast to mechanical regularity. Perceiving expressive power in any material, Arman goes beyond the triviality of the objects he appropriates. The 'accidents' he submits them to tend to reveal the artist's physical movements rather than any aesthetic ambition. His practise of martial arts guided his graphical work, balancing control and spontaneity, the obvious vehemence of the gesture concealing a profound poetry. Fifty Five Cachet embodies the year 1957, in which the artist who signed using his first name 'Armand', out of admiration for Van Gogh, was baptised 'Arman' through a typographical 'accident' at the Galerie Iris Clert.