Objectified Gestures? Index and Agency in Arman’s Allures d’objet
Beginning in 1957, two years before his breakthrough assemblages, Arman experimented with found objects in another manner: he inked them and then stamped, dragged, rolled, and tossed them onto and across a support. The results were the Allures d’objets, conceived as “object traces,” or records of ea...
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Université de Bourgogne
2018-07-01
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| Series: | Interfaces |
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| Online Access: | https://journals.openedition.org/interfaces/495 |
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| author | Jennifer Watson Wester |
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| author_sort | Jennifer Watson Wester |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Beginning in 1957, two years before his breakthrough assemblages, Arman experimented with found objects in another manner: he inked them and then stamped, dragged, rolled, and tossed them onto and across a support. The results were the Allures d’objets, conceived as “object traces,” or records of each item’s kinetic behavior. What looked like gestural abstract paintings were in fact indexes of the paths traveled by small objects like beads, eggs, shells, and shattered glass. Pierre Restany, Arman’s critical champion, argued that these traces were “objectified” in that the artist’s intentionality was superseded by the will of the objects themselves. This article questions the notion of an “objectified” gesture and considers the implications of the commingling of agencies in the indexing of objects. I argue that Restany’s attribution of self-determinacy to the object reflects his desire to fit Arman’s Allures d’objets into his own developing theory of a new realism. That theory, which would soon be codified as Nouveau Réalisme, insisted on the direct appropriation and unmediated presentation of “the real.” As such, it necessarily de-emphasized the artist’s gesture. In this article, I contend that Arman’s work resists this classification, and I recast the Allures d’objets as evidence of Arman’s own vision of realism, one that reveals the impossibility of pure objectivity. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-a8e7fff24a9341fc95ccd794ef3c9908 |
| institution | OA Journals |
| issn | 2647-6754 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2018-07-01 |
| publisher | Université de Bourgogne |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Interfaces |
| spelling | doaj-art-a8e7fff24a9341fc95ccd794ef3c99082025-08-20T02:12:40ZengUniversité de BourgogneInterfaces2647-67542018-07-013913915310.4000/interfaces.495Objectified Gestures? Index and Agency in Arman’s Allures d’objetJennifer Watson WesterBeginning in 1957, two years before his breakthrough assemblages, Arman experimented with found objects in another manner: he inked them and then stamped, dragged, rolled, and tossed them onto and across a support. The results were the Allures d’objets, conceived as “object traces,” or records of each item’s kinetic behavior. What looked like gestural abstract paintings were in fact indexes of the paths traveled by small objects like beads, eggs, shells, and shattered glass. Pierre Restany, Arman’s critical champion, argued that these traces were “objectified” in that the artist’s intentionality was superseded by the will of the objects themselves. This article questions the notion of an “objectified” gesture and considers the implications of the commingling of agencies in the indexing of objects. I argue that Restany’s attribution of self-determinacy to the object reflects his desire to fit Arman’s Allures d’objets into his own developing theory of a new realism. That theory, which would soon be codified as Nouveau Réalisme, insisted on the direct appropriation and unmediated presentation of “the real.” As such, it necessarily de-emphasized the artist’s gesture. In this article, I contend that Arman’s work resists this classification, and I recast the Allures d’objets as evidence of Arman’s own vision of realism, one that reveals the impossibility of pure objectivity.https://journals.openedition.org/interfaces/495Armanrealismindexicalityagencypostwar artnouveau réalisme |
| spellingShingle | Jennifer Watson Wester Objectified Gestures? Index and Agency in Arman’s Allures d’objet Interfaces Arman realism indexicality agency postwar art nouveau réalisme |
| title | Objectified Gestures? Index and Agency in Arman’s Allures d’objet |
| title_full | Objectified Gestures? Index and Agency in Arman’s Allures d’objet |
| title_fullStr | Objectified Gestures? Index and Agency in Arman’s Allures d’objet |
| title_full_unstemmed | Objectified Gestures? Index and Agency in Arman’s Allures d’objet |
| title_short | Objectified Gestures? Index and Agency in Arman’s Allures d’objet |
| title_sort | objectified gestures index and agency in arman s allures d objet |
| topic | Arman realism indexicality agency postwar art nouveau réalisme |
| url | https://journals.openedition.org/interfaces/495 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT jenniferwatsonwester objectifiedgesturesindexandagencyinarmansalluresdobjet |