Arman
Lives and works as an artist in New York, Venice and Paris
He wasn't always called Arman. Following a trip around Europe, he and his friends Yves Klein and Claude Pascal decided it would be simpler to use only their first names. A small catalogue misprint turned "Armand" into "Arman" and he decided to leave it like that, Paris in the 40s and 50s was still bohemian. Arman studied art, philosophy, archaeology and oriental art and taught judo in Spain, before discovering his own style. In 1960, together with Yves Klein, he founded the neo-realistic movement, whose most important representative he is, together with Jackson Pollock. The movement took over from abstract expressionism, catapulting pop art into the higher echelons of the art world. Works by Arman soon appeared in such famous galeries as the "Museum of Modern Art" in New York and the "Musée Georges Pompidou" in Paris. Influenced by Kurt Schwitter's Dada art, he produced "cachets" (his stamp prints), "colères" (objects - frequently violins - broken up and re-formed into collages) and "accumulations" (collections of everyday objects set into acrylic blocks). His design for the Milk project cites a work from 1967: tubes of artists" paints set in acryl, only this time painted. The colour is the "Pouring White" of milk.