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Fernandez Arman was born in Nice on 17 November 1928 where he attended the École des Arts decoratifs, meeting Yves Klein, with whom he became a friend and companion on excursions around Europe. He subsequently completed his studies in Paris at the École du Louvre. His first works are purely figurative and this period lasts until the end of the 1950s and then continues by starting to include objects in his works. In fact, it was 1959 when Arman came across a drawer full of used light bulbs. It is the inspiration, the beginning of a new way of painting where the object becomes the central element of the work. Arman in fact he assembled the light bulbs as best he could, exposing them like a painting: thus the first of the "Accumulations”. Immediately afterwards he joined the group of NouveauRéalisme founded by the young critic Pierre Restany. In 1963 the first “Combustions” appeared. The interest in fire begins with Yves Klein and this suggestion infects numerous artists to the point of becoming, in particular in Bernard Aubertin,exclusive object of the work. Combustions often concern musical instruments, mainly i violins, than at a later time Arman it drowns in a fusion of plexiglass which is worked and smoothed into parallelepiped-shaped blocks. In the 1970s he replaced plexiglas with concrete from which the most disparate objects emerged, not just musical instruments; this is how the “Cements”. From the 80s onwards he began with the series of "Fragmentations”, that is, the objects are dissected and glued onto a support, canvas or wood, and often covered with traces of paint. The objects are the most disparate, from shoes to books through to musical instruments which constitute the most fascinating part of this type of work. During the years Arman he exhibits in many prestigious private galleries and museums, also being invited with a personal room at the Venice Biennaleof 1976. As well as in France, Arman works in the United States, invited to exhibit or teach, as he did at the California University of Los Angeles in 1968, the year in which he participated in the Venice Biennale and Documenta of Kassel. This assiduous frequenting of the United States allowed him to take up citizenship in 1972. From the mid-1980s he began to create monumental outdoor sculptures for public and private bodies, culminating in 1999 with “La Rampante”, a powerful bronze casting, with a patina of red, of Ferrari cars, cut and superimposed, installed in front of the entrance to the Imola racing circuit. Arman died October 22, 2005 in New York; He had his mocking epitaph “Finally alone” engraved on the tomb.
