Oral history interview with Arman, 1968 May 18
This transcript is in the public domain and may be used without permission. Quotes and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with Arman, 1968 May 18, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW WITH ARMANAPRIL 22, 1968
INTERVIEWER: SEVIM FESCI
SF: SEVIM FESCI
A: ARMAN
[Note from the Transcriber: Arman came from France about 7 months prior to the date of this interview. His command of English is not at all good. I am not sure that I have understood correctly what his meaning is.
On May 18, 1968 Sevim Fesci further interviewed Arman. But the conversation is entirely in French; therefore it has not been transcribed. (This is the tape that has Bernard Venet on the other side.)]
[There is some preliminary conversation in French.]
SF: Arman, Why don't you start at the beginning, and by the beginning I mean your family background, and your education, and training. I understand that your whole name is Arman Fernandez.
A: Well, no, it is really Arman Pierre Fernandez.
SF: Is it of Spanish origin?
A: Yes -- well, Spanish from Algeria, Algerian Spanish. And some of my family is from Marat, some from Tunisia, from Algeria. My grandfather is a Separdic Jew, Spanish Jew. My grandmother is Algerian-Spanish. My mother is French.
SF: Your mother is French. And your father is . . . ?
A: My father is Algerian Spanish.
SF: And where were you born?
A: In Nice.
SF: And your parents were artists themselves? Or are you the only artist?
A: My father is what you would call a Sunday painter. My aunts, my father's sisters, were all artists. They painted. My father taught me oil painting when I was ten.
SF: Oh, he taught you?
A: Yes. I was already quite gifted for painting.
SF: When you were very, very small?
A: When I was a child of four I wasn't really drawing like a child, I wasn't sketching as a child. I would sketch and I was using perspective, the good relationship of the subject.
SF: And that was very spontaneous?
A: Yes. I remember everybody was amazed that I didn't draw in a childish way.
SF: And what was your relationship to your family?
A: What family? My direct family?
SF: Your direct family -- your parents?
A: My father was from quite a rich family. My grandfather was on the banking staff. He was a millionaire, and they were living in Monte Carlo instead of Paris. They were all quite rich. And my mother was very poor. She was a maid, a peasant from the country. And during a long time my mother was the mistress of my father. I didn't realize until I was five. They were married when I was five. There was quite a good relationship but I always felt my mother was very unhappy because she wasn't accepted by the family of my father. It was quite a very strained relationship. On Sunday afternoon at the precise hour of two o'clock, the family of my father received me and my mother once a week or once a month, I don't remember. It was quite ceremonial.
SF: And all the family was . . . . Do you have brothers or sisters?
A: No.
SF: You are the only child?
A: Yes. But my father had sisters and all that family lived [inaudible phrase] my father's sisters never went out.
SF: They never went out.
A: No. They were under very special supervision. They were in a very large apartment. Even in Nice after, first in Monte Carlo -- with pillows and cushions everywhere, waiting to be married. Nobody --
SF: They were not married?
A: No. Because they didn't have any suitors. In Algeria it was a kind of family they were very not -- the girls didn't go outside.
SF: She was waiting for her husband at home?
A: Yes.
SF: But your grandparents were still alive, were they, at that time?
A: Yes, they were alive at this time. They died quite old, about eight years ago. They were alive when I married, myself.
SF: Oh, they were still alive?
A: Yes. My father is a very sweet man. A little bit introspective. The only things that counted with him are his wife, his parents, his dog (if he has a dog), his son. The other people for him don't exist. He's completely cut off . . . .
SF: Out of the world, yes?
A: Out of the world. He lives in his own small world. He is very sweet, too sweet. He is not at all authoritative, afraid to have a fight with me even when I was a baby. A too sweet father. But I had a strong mother.
SF: Oh, she was strong?
A: Very strong. A very strong character. And my father was very sweet and very artistic. He played the cello, he painted, listening to music, or reading poetry. But a little bit cold style. He was interested in everything tat was the average taste of the of the 19th century, and the average bourgeois taste of the beginning of the 20th century.
SF: Oh, I see, yes. And did your father want you to be an artist? Did he push you in a way?
A: All my father's family pushed me to be an artist. They thought I was very good at art and could do a lot of things like that. But they got quite disapproving when they followed my work. They got quite a shock.
SF: In which way to you mean?
A: It was very funny. I remember I had been in a school after I completed my secondary studies, my baccalaureate.
SF: All that was in Nice?
A: Yes. I took my baccalaureate in philosophy. And after I got into the school of Nationale Arts Decoratifs. And I was a very good student. I won many first prize for nude drawing and sketching and anatomy and everything. And I was one of the two . . . .
SF: Was it very classical drawing?
A: Yes. I was one of the two or three best students in the school, the whole school. And I didn't finish because I found it quite boring and I left for Paris. And I wanted to go to the school of Beaux-Arts. But the exam was so long and so difficult and I started to prepare for it but I never finished it. And I went to the school of the Louvre. And there I completed the studies. I was interested in the study of history of art.
SF: But at the school of the Louvre you didn't draw, you didn't paint, it was just historical?
A: No, no. Historical, but it gave me an idea, a kind of general idea about the history of art. It was probably good for me -- showed me the necessity of some knowledge of art history. And there I started to paint by myself. What I was doing was quite surrealistic.
SF: In Paris?
A: In Paris. When I showed my father some of those surrealistic things, he started to scream, ". . . that it was disgusting; why was the head of this personage finished like a diamond; it's not natural." (And after I did that for some years I became abstract. I became influenced by De Stael and Poliokoff.) "Before at least there was some figure, now nothing. What does it mean; it's terrible." After, I was involved with painting objects and color. He said, "Before there was some color painted with oil painting, but now what is it? What are those terrible things?" After all I was involved in the object itself, the object together and garbage, garbage can, my goodness before it was -- at least every time the new version [?]was worse, worse, worse.
SF: And he didn't understand what . . . ?
A: My father continued, "You will become serious, you will take a real job, you have two children and you're not serious. All those stupid things that lead to nothing." And all the family was like that. He was roaring I was so old and didn't like to make money and I was really the shame of the family. [MACHINE TURNED OFF.]
SF: So, as you told me, you went to a school where there were only girls?
A: Yes. To start with, you asked me I guess about what was my major choice?
SF: Yes.
A: I guess because I used to be alone. I had no friends to play with because I was living only with my mother in a house where there were no other children, apartment house with only old people. And I used to invent my games myself. I was really attracted by every kind of combination I could make of games with someone else or quite always involved a number of small objects like money, or matches, and kind of topological games not very complicated with very simple type of game. I invented stories, some with soldiers, some with people and they changed places. And I did this quite late, I invented games like that even when I was thirteen years old. But I started to play alone by myself very young. And then we moved. My parents got married. And we moved to a place where there were some other children. But something special, instead of my going to the public school, the junior public school where all the children were going and mixed between girls and boys, I went -- because some friends of my parents who had their daughter there who was the same age as I was -- I went to this school. It was a very exquisite private school for girls. And from the age of five-and-a-half to eleven-and-a-half, for six years, I went to this school with only girls. And I guess it was quite an interesting experimentation.
SF: And your relation with the girls was very good?
A: Oh, yes. I was very happy because I was the only male and everybody from the Directrice to the youngest pupil was very nice to me. It was a very good feeling. Maybe because of that I've never felt very insecure with women.
SF: You were used to it when you were very young.
A: Yes.
SF: And then you left school when you were eleven years old.
A: Yes. Then I changed schools. They took me from that school because the Directrice was worrying that I started to flirt too much with the girls and they took me out of that school, before it could be dangerous. And I went to the Lycee. And that was about the time the first phase of the war in France was finished.
SF: I didn't ask you when you were born.
A: In 1928. And I was eleven when the war started.
SF: It was just starting.
A: And when I was twelve, it was very bad. And because of the climate, because of the change of schools, I did very badly in my studies for three years. I was the last one in the class. And I remember they put me in a different school and it was a very tough school. It was especially a technical school for workers who wanted to become specialists. I was so bad in school. And I remember when I was there, they had a kind of club called the "Club of the Young." The "Young" was a kind of slang word for licorice; you know, that kind of black candy.
SF: Yes.
A: It was the slang word for licorice. The purpose of the club . . . . It was a racket, a very simple racket. The worst pupil was the president, the second worst was the vice-president, and the third worst was the secretary of the club. And we divided the class into two parts, good pupils and bad ones. The good pupils had to pay a fine for a good reputation to the bad ones, so the bad ones could buy licorice and ice cream. There was very little ice cream; the country was so poor. But we had a kind of licorice and a thing called Glaca Kaka, which was just a kind of syrup on fresh ice. And I had president twice or three quarters. And the club was discovered because the better students were complaining to their parents that if they were good they had to pay a fine and if they didn't pay the fine the bad ones, who were stronger. We'd beat them up if they didn't pay the fine. And after this scandal I dropped out of the school. That was very strange, because when I was painting as a child I was violently competitive, I always wanted to be the best, the strongest, the fastest. Or I was playing alone very quietly and very seriously. Or reading a lot. I read great amount. I was reading quite well at eight. In fact, I was reading at five. My mother taught me to read. Before I went to that school, I was already reading.
SF: And who was telling you what to read, your mother?
A: No, I would pick up anything at hand. I read everything I could. Very early I got involved with things like Jules Verne, Alexander Dumas, Victor Hugo, adventurous things and classical things which I could find. And I was always reading, even at night when I was 13, 14; even when I was in boarding school in my bed I had a blanket and I read the largest quantity of things possible.
SF: And did you have some heroes at that time? A few persons that you admired?
A: Mythological heroes?
SF: Yes. Through books or . . . .
A: Yes. Tarzan. When I was really small, because I saw some movies of Tarzan before the war. And I was always playing Tarzan with the other ones.
SF: And you were the Tarzan?
A: Yes. And if I wasn't Tarzan I tried to beat everybody. And if they were stronger than me, I preferred to give in if I couldn't play Tarzan. And after Tarzan, I was very involved in Captain Nemo. I would like to be a kind of Captain Nemo who knew a lot of things. He was quite a superman in science and everything.
SF: And were you impressed by the news from the war? Because you said that when you were in boarding school it was during the war. And were you impressed by the news that you might have read in the paper or what your parents said about the war?
A: I didn't pay that much attention to the facts themselves. I was really involved with the visual photography of the war. And I was very attracted by everything. I can say now, I guess, I was attracted by the planes. I would see pictures of planes falling and shots and planes exploding and things like that that I saw in the newsreels. I was really attracted by every kind of violence. Images of explosions and photographs of things like that; I was really very attracted by that. But without the judgment of what it was. Afterwards I learned of the German side. My father had to escape because of Istanbul. I was lucky that my mother was French so I avoided. My father's family had difficulty. Nice was not a very rich part of France for food. And I don't know if you know that but we had the most severe rationing in Europe, more than Poland, in fact. Nobody knows that more than Poland and more than Bulgaria [inaudible phrase] And it was quite okay for people living near a rich agriculture because France is quite rich in agriculture. But in Nice it was just awful. And, furthermore, the main bridge of communication between France and that part of France was formerly Italian, was claimed by Italy, and we were living under the Italian flag. And if you weren't an Italian citizen, you were like a slave and the food problem became so difficult that it became the main thing of every day. I killed cats to eat them. I killed birds with my sling. I was really a good marksman with my slingshot.
SF: Did you bring them home?
A: Yes. We were eating them in soup. We had cats. Nice was a city of retired people full of old ladies and their cats and their birds. And really I can swear that in six months not one cat was surviving. We ate all the cats there and we ate all the birds, including sea gulls, everything we could get, because very quickly we couldn't reach the sea. When the Italians gave up in 1942, the Germans built a kind of wall; nobody could get fish anymore. It was finished. The way to the sea was cut off. And food rationing was crazy. I remember we were dreaming in the night about food. My grandfather -- my mother's father -- who was a peasant sent many, many packages but only one in every five arrived and a lot of them arrived open and their contents stolen. At the end of 1943 we received one with a ham. It was in transit for so long that it was covered with worms. We just took off the worms, put it in water, and ate it. Maybe all those insecurities and hardships accumulated to make me secure.
SF: Yes, I was thinking of that.
A: Because, just after the war when the war was over, I found a little job working with the American Army. I didn't speak English but just with a sign I showed the hotel where the Americans were from the station But I started to make some business with the American Army, with the PX. And I became quite good at trading because we were starving until 1948 in France. But mainly from 1942 to 1945. Were you in France at this time?
SF: Yes.
A: In Paris?
SF: No, I was in Monaco.
A: In what year? You were a baby?
SF: Yes, I was a baby. I was two or four years old. I don't remember any of this.
A: I don't know what was the situation in Monaco at this time.
SF: Conditions there were not so bad, as far as my parents told me.
A: It was quite independent?
SF: Yes.
A: They could receive things from America?
SF: Yes.
A: I have one good memory. Sometimes people do not like Switzerland because they always have the feeling that they get profit out of the war and they didn't get any risk or anything. But I can't feel any resentment towards Switzerland because one of the best memories I had during the war was that once a day at school a quart of milk was offered by the Swiss to the children and that quart of milk was something so wonderful! And sometimes chocolate, too!
SF: So that you began to dream of Switzerland?
A: Yes. Switzerland was a dream, a great country.
SF: And you told me you were reading a lot as a child. Did you have time to paint, too?
A: Not as much. I was very good. I was always the first one in any way in any kind of school. In drawing class I was the first one. I was painting a little bit, drawing a little bit. But my main activity was really reading and building games, a lot of solitary games. I played chess very young. I taught myself chess when I was eight. And I was playing chess a lot then, from eight to eleven. I beat my father at chess when I was eleven. He got so mad he just threw the chess set out through the window.
SF: And did you have good friends at that time?
A: Very few. Because it was always . . . . I had a gang. When I was twelve and thirteen I had a gang. In this gang was the singer, Gilbert Nichol. We were the same age.
SF: Oh, he was with you in a gang?
A: Yes. In that gang there were five or six of us. Quite tough boys. And some of this gang became very famous. One became famous as a killer. And the other as a singer, Gilbert Nichol. The one who became a killer has been involved in a lot of political things. He became a bodyguard, and a killer for the FBF. And myself, I became a bodyguard but not for political reasons but because I was so friendly with him to protect him, too.
SF: So you were his bodyguard?
A: Yes. He became a bodyguard and became kind of responsible for a lot of things with De Gaulle when De Gaulle was fighting with Communism. And I became a bodyguard of the Minister Dessau and I have been involved in a lot of bombing, a lot of terrorism. And -- it's very strange -- because at the same time in this very violent life -- sometimes it was our duty to bomb Communists, people, to machine gun. I was very good at that, I was gifted for things like that. But this I got . . . .
SF: Can you explain why you were so attracted by violence?
A: I guess if I can make an analysis -- it may not be accurate -- but I have been a security person. I worked a lot as an Italian security person. I guess it's almost a kind of almost sexual recreation. Every kind of violence when you see all those Nazi Party and all those organizations and when the young men are very attracted by violence to prove to themselves that they're real male. And I guess I was paying the reverse of the six years in the girls' school, something like that. But, besides that, it was a kind of beneficial . . . because at this time I met Yves Klein.
SF: When was it?
A: When I was 18. I met Yves Klein at judo school. Yves Klein and . . . .
SF: That was the way you met him?
A: Yes. We met at the judo school. And I very quickly became involved in a lot of metaphysical and philosophical things, Hindu and Rosicrucians and Zen Buddhism. I spent my time working on philosophy and broken up with violent and political things and all that. It was very . . . .
SF: Yes. Two tendencies.
A: Yes, two tendencies were very strong. And I became very good at judo. I became a judo teacher. When I was 22 we had the school in Spain with Yves Klein. I was teaching with Yves Klein in a school there.
SF: When did you become independent financially from the family?
A: When I married.
SF: Did you marry very young?
A: Yes, very young. I was 24 when I married. I was a soldier at the time.
SF: Were you drafted?
A: I had been drafted at 23-24 because I was a student.
SF: What were you studying at that time -- history of art?
A: Yes, history of art in Paris. I became partly independent because after a while I was still working with my father. After a while I became independent. I worked with my father. I became again independent. I worked again with my father.
SF: You worked . . . ?
A: Yes, I worked with my father.
SF: You mean painting? Or . . . ?
A: No, no. First he had a store of antiques, used furniture and things like that.
SF: A shop?
A: Yes, a shop. And then he had one with modern furniture. And I worked as a salesman with him. Because it was easier for me to work for him (I worked for other people, too) because it gave me time when I wanted a day off to go to an exhibition somewhere. I could take a day off when I worked with him. Or I could take two days sometimes to go somewhere.
SF: You were at the same time more independent.
A: Yes.
SF: And when did you decide to become an artist? Can you recall the exact moment?
A: I always wanted to be an artist. Just, I didn't know where to start because I always had a strong sense of criticism and I knew I wasn't doing anything very interesting. But I was always involved in doing something. I never stopped wanting to do something. Even when I stopped, I was making sketches, drawings, portraits of my friends. But when I went to the School of Arts Decoratifs, my reaction -- I stopped for a while but I was coming back. But really I got the strong will to make that exclusively and nothing else after 1954. I remember especially a summer when I got my vacation of one month and that whole month I painted day and night. I painted a great deal and I felt very strongly that it was my career.
SF: What kind of paintings were you doing?
A: Abstract paintings at this time.
SF: Under which influence?
A: Under the influence mainly of De Stael. And they were not very interesting. I was painting like 10,000 other painters. I didn't bring much to these paintings but it was a very good exercise. But I guess it's very important to afford to do a lot of bad things, of wrong things, of weak things. If you can afford it, maybe one day you will do some good things, too.
SF: Yes. Maybe you can find yourself better that way.
A: The first personal things I did were rubber stamps.
SF: Yes, in 1954.
A: No, in 1955, 1956. Really 1956 systematically, 1955 accidentally. I was in the office working and using the rubber stamps and making compositions with rubber stamps. And under the influence of Kurt Schwitters and Pollock, and all those influences became very important for me.
SF: Pollock, yes. How did you come to know about them?
A: When in 1954 I really started to become involved exclusively in painting. I was involved in getting information too.
SF: In information?
A: In information about art. I read every kind of magazine, every kind of invitation, every kind of book about painting. I always have the characteristic to become a specialist when I do something. Everything I am doing . . . .
SF: By specialist you mean . . . ?
A: I specialize very much in everything. That is a characteristic of mine. I have never been -- how do you say it? -- a dilettante. If I study chess I study chess. I get books on it and I want to become good at it.
SF: Yes, you become deeply involved in what you are doing.
A: I want to become a pro, a professional. I learn judo and I become a pro. Everything I do I try to do to perfection. I read a lot about it. And when I was involved to do only painting and nothing else when I gave up judo and everything else in 1954 (I gave up judo after the operation on my knee and I realized that I would never become a champion of judo any more), and I was underweight. And I was always involved in painting. Like Yves Klein was, too. And what I did was a read all the information and material I could get my hands on -- books, history of surrealism, criticism, and everything I could find. I was collecting every possible kind of information. I never do things instinctively. I always work . . . .
SF: So, as you said, until ?54 you gathered a lot of information but you really express yourself in your own way starting in 1954?
A: No, no. I started to really express myself independently as an artist with some original material not before ?55.
SF: That's what I mean.
A: Yes. Not before 1955. But still, whenever I receive an interesting catalogue and so on, I keep it. I always have had that rat pack instinct to keep information that is written. It's very important. I always collect slides, pictures, texts, any written material on every subject that I'm interested in.
SF: Yes. And then you belonged to the School of Nice for a little while?
A: I created the School of Nice with Yves Klein (which didn't exist). It was a joke, the School of Nice.
SF: It was a joke. I didn't know how to ask you.
A: Yes, it's a little bit of a joke. It was Martial Raysse who for the first time employed that term "the School of Nice" as a joke. But the name "School of Nice" has been picked up and written about by art critics who related some things about the new School of Nice. But really it doesn't exist.
SF: Yes, it's a joke. Was there, for you, a kind of group feeling with all those artists?
A: Oh, yes. And especially with Yves Klein and Martial Raysse, and Ben a little bit -- Ben Boitu, who is a very interesting personage; more interested in Happenings and expression like Schwitters' group. By the way, he's Turkish.
SF: Yes, I know. He's of Turkish origin.
A: Yes. He's a very interesting guy. I had a group feeling with those but not for everybody.
SF: And when was it really that you met a lot together?
A: Well, it was something fantastic. Yves Klein was the most devoted already. He knew what he wanted. At this time, in 1953, when he came back from Japan, he belonged to the Lettrist group in Paris. Every time he came back to Nice we had a kind of festival, we had a lot of sessions, we were making theater and a lot of things; and we started a "symphonie monotone;" we were screaming from many houses on the same note.
SF: You mean from different houses, from a lot of houses?
A: From my house, from Yves Klein's house, from everywhere. And it was very fantastic. For over a period of many years Yves Klein would come back to Nice several times and we always had a kind of festival. A lot of things happened. We did a lot of things. It was very interesting. He was really the soul of the group, he was more active. I awoke later than he as an individual. I was more dependent on what happened around me.
SF: Which were the ideals that you shared together? What really was the meaning of this?
A: There have been things like that. But it was just between Yves Klein, Claude Pascal, who was a poet, and me. And what happened one day: when we were very involved in philosophy we decided to become kings, but not kings on a throne, but kings as conscientious responsible to some things. And we divided the world, the universe. Yves Klein was to take everything that was organic life.
SF: Nature you mean, in a way?
A: But alive. Claude Pascal was to take everything that was natural but not alive, like stones, etc. And me, everything that was made. So we split the world. And every morning . . . . It was a very interesting time. We were very close actually. We were traveling together by cycling.
SF: This was about when?
A: Oh, it was a long time ago, before we became painters. It was between 1948 and 1952.
SF: And that was in Nice?
A: When we were in Spain; we were in England together.
SF: Oh, you traveled?
A: We traveled by cycling to Italy or somewhere.
SF: Was it just to know more?
A: To know more. To have experimentation. To teach judo and to be taught in other things, to learn languages. I started to learn English a little bit in England but I was so poorly gifted (as you can see) that it was a complete failure. But it was quite interesting. Sometimes there were two of us, or three, or four (when another guy called Vadim, a Russian, came with us).
SF: You mean the singer?
A: No. I don't remember the name; I just remember the first name. And in the morning when we awoke we would put our head in our hands like this and meditate for five minutes about our words, about the subject, about the responsibility we had. We played a lot of games like that.
SF: It was a kind of game?
A: But very silently.
SF: And you were thinking of --
A: Yes. During seven years I have been a vegetarian. That was another kind of game which we took seriously, too.
SF: And did you believe in these games?
A: Yes! Yes, yes. We were very involved in what we were doing. And during this time we were meditating by drug and by starvation, fasting.
SF: Starvation?
A: Yes, we were fasting. We were fasting one day a week and one week a month.
SF: For what? Why? Just . . . ?
A: Just to become more conscious. We were working on Zen philosophy, Buddhism. We took the za-zen position of the night, all the night, starved completely for two or three days, and looking at the moon. In other words, really, we escaped the body. It turned out so well; it was something quite fantastic. I had a very good time with Yves Klein, a good pastime.
SF: But you didn't express yourself in any way at the time?
A: Judo. Exercise, mental exercise, astrology and a lot of things like that. And at the same time I was involved by another friend in those violent political things. But this I did less and less. The other world, Yves Klein and Claude Pascal, took over more and more. And we pushed just the pure stupid violence aside.
SF: You became more aware of yourself, yes.
A: We were really good friends.
SF: And this was always in Nice?
A: In Nice, and on trips. We were traveling. I went a little bit everywhere in Europe: from Germany to Belgium, to Sweden, to England, to Italy, and Spain. We taught there. It was very interesting. And we felt that nothing could happen to us. We felt like stones.
SF: You felt that strong?
A: Yes. We were really like rolling stones. Nothing could happen to us. Nothing. And of course it was a very good feeling to have.
SF: I think it was in Milan in 1960.
A: Yes, but the group itself had met before.
SF: You mean the group of The New Realists?
A: The New Realism group, yes. It was an idea of Yves Klein and Restany; Yves Klein because Yves Klein wanted power and with the group he thought that he would lead the group and have power over the other people in the group; and Restany because it was an idea of his, the new urbanism, the new poetry of the object, of the common object, of the manufactured environment of the town, the city. And the group was a kind of group with only six people. They were Yves Klein, Villegle, who was the man on the posters, . . .
SF: Yes.
A: . . . Hains and Dufrene, Tinguely, and me. That was the original group. And Cesar came afterwards. But it was just a manifesto. But about two months later the group officially met with eleven members at Yves Klein's house. A constitution and more complete manifesto of The New Realism was drawn up. Every member of the group signed this. The group lasted twenty minutes exactly.
SF: Twenty minutes?
A: Twenty minutes.
SF: How was that?
A: For the very good reason that some fighting and dissension started in the group. Restany left after everything had been signed. He was so happy that he had a group! Like Breton with his group of Surrealism, Restany had the group of the New Realism with eleven members. He went somewhere toget drunk, to celebrate. And he left some of the members behind together. Those members were Yves Klein, Haines, Villegle, Dufrene, Martial Raysse, and me, at Yves Klein's house. But, the members of the group, they accepted Martial Raysse and the Lettrist group (the group which was scratching posters). But suddenly Hains said to Yves Klein, "Well, you know, I don't agree very much with Martial Raysse. It looks a little bit surrealist, not new realist. It's like you, when you make woman, print. I like the blue but I don't like the. . ."
SF: Hains said?
A: Yes, Hains said. And Yves said, "Come on! You tell me that in my house!" And he slapped him. "I made everything myself. I am in that group. I called everybody. You and your little palisade. You can go to Hell. I don't want the group any more. I will make a group and we will call it the Group of Nice," as Martial told me.
SF: So that was the idea behind the Group of Nice?
A: No. It was before; Martial called it before. "And we don't want you and there's no more group." And Hains went and the others went and the group was broken. As the men departed, Yves scratched one of the posters of the realists took apart one of the things. He got angry. And two hours later I met Restany and I said, "You know your group of the New Realists is finished, it doesn't exist any more!" Well, after that, Pierre Restany organized a lot of exhibitions of the Group of the New Realists. But for one reason or another, it was never complete. They excluded Martial Raysse for some years because -- well, some people didn't want to exhibit with the group, some people like Cesar didn't want to sign with the group any more. So this group -- as a group -- the whole thing lasted only twenty minutes after it originated.
SF: But what was the idea behind this twenty-minutes group?
A: I guess as always what happened is that groups are very good at the beginning to take a position to fight against something that is established. It was to make a coordination of the move against the tachiste [?] expressionism in Paris; to try to get some place in a salon, to get some exhibitions, to get some recognition, and it was to make some coordinated moves together. And that was the proposal for making the group. And with some secret ideas. People like Tinguely and Yves Klein with the idea "I will use the group for myself." And some weak people like (we don't give the name of the weak one) said, "Well, we will submit names like that that will pull me . . . ."
SF: Pull me down, yes.
A: Yes. Some will be the locomotive and some will be the wagon, train, you know; that's how the idea went. And that I guess was the proposal of the group itself, really. Because those artists were quite different anyway.
SF: They were different?
A: Yes.
SF: But was there a basic idea in general?
A: In general the basic idea -- it was a long fight to find a sentence that could be applied to everybody. And the sentence which everybody accepted to sign was: (I will tell you in French) "Nouveau Realisme egal nouvelles approaches perceptifs du real." That's, "New Realism equals new sensitive, perceptive approaches of the real."
SF: But I saw also another definition which was that it was forty degrees above Dadaism.
A: Well, that was after. SA: That was much after.
A: And that was what made a big fight because Yves Klein was against that style. He didn't want to . . . . He issued it against his will. And Martial Raysse, too. And me, I was between. It was quite a joke because Restany made the New Realism start in 1943-1944 with Yves Klein and Hains take a position. And for him it was forty years after Dada. And if it was forty years after Dada, after Picabia, it was forty degrees after Dada. It was a kind of joke which doesn't mean anything, really.
SF: I see, yes, But you have very often been referred to as the Nouveau Realiste par excellence.
A: Myself?
SF: Yes. Do you agree with this term?
A: Well, yes and no. Because really I've never been a New Realist. New Realism means to take reality as it is. The real New Realist could be Marcel Duchamp if he didn't put any base on the object.
SF: Yes.
A: And the New Realism of Pierre Restany, I guess, would be when I used the garbage as an expression. (That would be a good example.) And when I use it like that I just put the garbage in the container. As I did once.
SF: But what was the meaning behind it? Did you . . . ?
A: The expression by the quantity.
SF: Expression by the quantity?
A: Yes.
SF: But why garbage?
A: To show that sixty cubic feet of garbage is not like the garbage of one person as another quantity. And to show the beauty of the element itself, not as you see it because you know it's garbage; because it is like Kurt Schwitters when he was using old paper from waste baskets. Exactly the same meaning. A three-dimensional Kurt Schwitters.
SF: I see, yes.
A: And by accident, because Kurt Schwitters's was a composition. But I start with a very simple theory: I believe that the objects themselves have auto-composition.
SF: That the objects have . . . ?
A: They have auto-composition themselves. If you put in a container two thousand forks, they will assemble following more or less the form of the fork and they will have space between them and they will have auto-composition that will be made by accident, but that will still be predictable when you use an object.
SF: That's right. You have an accumulation.
A: Accumulation. Auto-composition of the object.
SF: But do you mean that the objects have aesthetic values by themselves? Why do you choose that particular object and not another one?
A: It depends. I'm quite aware of what I'm doing. When I was taking an object with a very strong meaning, as an object like a gas mask, which is built a little bit on the order of the human face, and has a meaning of war or destruction, the meaning of the object was stronger than the aesthetic meaning, the poetic, or the message; the literary message was stronger than the aesthetic one. Whereas a ball bearing the aesthetic is stronger than the meaning. But I was aware of that. And it depends on the composition. Sure, if I have five thousand square feet of gas masks from a certain space, we can forget the gas mask. It will be drawn on the mass of gas masks. But because it's a large object it will take on its importance when it will be put in a five by six composition.
SF: I see now.
A: And I knew it when I was doing it. But if I take ball bearings, even in a small composition, two by two feet, the ball bearing could be forgotten as a ball bearing and take a position in an all over grain composition surface. And I always play between those two tendencies; some a little bit literary when the object has meaning and some more aesthetically when the object has just plastic value.
SF: Yes. Do you think you are very far from the objects of Marcel Duchamp, for instance? The ready-mades. . . ?
A: Yes. In the same sense that -- first I must make the statement that he refuses the aesthetic. I have never refused the aesthetic. I integrate the aesthetic; I accept and I am interested by aestheticism. Even if it's a little bit old-fashioned, I don't care. Because I always pretend that non-aestheticism leads to aestheticism.
SF: [French phrase]
A: Yes. Or aestheticism of the non-aestheticism primary structure is aesthetic. Even Bernard Venet when he doesn't want to touch (teach) any aestheticism has some aestheticism. His is non-composition only by the choice or by the non-choice to make an elevation from a common objects or form a proposition, and to make this proposition look at it as a piece of art is an aestheticism in itself. And I'm always very aware of it. And even when Marcel Duchamp takes an object and shows it as something else than the object itself by the baptism of the object, makes an aesthetical move (mood?) because he made this move in the field of aestheticism. If he used the object in poetry he made the move, the object will be used in poetry as meaning. If he used the object in science, if an object by any kind of chance has to be used -- ball bearing, or whatever it is -- in science, it becomes part of a total in science, too. But it depends on where you use something and where you take something out of its natural context of use and it becomes a part of what it is. And art is aestheticism anyway.
SF: Yes, I understand it very well now.
A: For that I'm very precise in the statement. It's most important to choose aestheticism. In this case, I prefer to assume (accept) it.
SF: But why did you choose the object to express your art?
A: I guess I have a very strong feeling about the object. First, on account of my environment. My father was selling antiques and things and I was concerned with the object. Secondly, my feeling of quantity. When I was a child, a quantity of objects was always interesting and I was always transforming those quantities. And, I guess I was in a sense a collector -- I have the instinct of a rat pack collector. I collect information. I collected everything from my childhood up to now. When I was a child I collected marbles, I just didn't want to have marbles to play with.
SF: Just for possessions?
A: For possessions. I guess for security. [He said "securization."]
SF: Security you mean?
A: Yes, security. And what happened, too, I have been quite fascinated by the transformation of the object through civilization and of the history of art. A hundred years ago the object had a very strong personality just by the fact it was made by human hand. Every chair was a little bit different even if they were alike. Every clock was different. Every cart was different. Every table was different. And these objects got an individuality. You can see that when you collect antiques. You never find exactly the same chair. They were made by hand and they were individual. Even if they were made by hand they were close to human than the objects made in the industrial 19th and 20th century, objects which have been made by mass production. Those objects that were made by hand were passed on to the son, and the son passed it on to his son. They were repaired with love.
SF: Yes, from generation to generation.
A: Yes. And because they were really created by hand, these objects got part of the individuality of the people who created them. But with mass production the object lost its individuality. When you made a thousand coque a la bowl (the prototype is a coque a la bowl), they are just part of the production, a bowl, a plastic bowl. Every kind of mass production. And by this fact, they lost their individuality as an object, but they got something more human; they got a kind of --
SF: More human?
A: Yes. They got an extension, like fingernails, like hair, like our skin. You know, we use objects like a snake uses its skin. When we are through with the object, we throw it away. And it's part of the human extension. It carries a part of the human extension more than everything else because we just use it like that, radio, telephone, a bowl, a bottle. They are just an extension of our possibility and, I really mean this, more an extension of everyone than before when the object was more individual. And the kind of surrounding of the mass-produced object fascinated me, scared me, too. And the cycle, the most living cycle of the modern object -- production, consummation, destruction in the end.
SF: Yes, a kind of cycle.
A: I've always been very sensitive to the cycle of production like that. And this kind of reaction I always transmit or translate in my work. The adventure of the modern object and the classical object. A violin is a classical object. Gears are a modern object.
SF: Yes. But when you do accumulation, do you want just to hold the moment, you know, just to stop a moment? How did the idea of accumulation come?
A: The "stop a moment" is another thing. "Stop a moment" is absolutely another completely different thing that I use in my other . . . . I always have two parts of growth: it's accumulation or destruction; these are the two parts of my activities. If you want to split them, very well.
SF: That's right. The accumulation on one side and there's your colere or "action sculpture," for instance.
A: Yes. Colere, cutting, burning, the blowing in with dynamite, the destroying, the sinking, every kind of destructive action I use.
SF: Is it your way to express modern times?
A: Yes-s. Well, no, destruction is more to stop the time.
SF: To stop the time?
A: Yes. You carry a bottle of milk when you're a child, you drop it, so then the milk has a form on the floor and the piece of glass, but it doesn't ever keep it. It's just an accident. It's very intriguing and you would like to keep it. And the colere for me has always been the fire stops when it (he) has just that
SF: So you keep it because
A: Keep it, keep that moment, the moment of destruction because it's between destruction and not destruction when you stop the process.
SF: You stop the destruction though, you said?
A: Yes, you stop the destruction.
SF: Or you look at the destruction?
A: Yes, but especially when you embed it or fix it in the panel, you stop the moment, you stop the accident, you break like that, everything is blown up. If I could stop them and do it, too, I would like that very much.
SF: Yes, I see. But there must be a problem of time for you, too.
A: Yes.
SF: Are you obsessed by time?
A: Not as much.
SF: No?
A: No. The time, no. I'm more obsessed (upset) by memory than by time. I don't believe in time. Time is a very relative thing.
SF: Yes, abstract.
A: No, relative. Memory creates time. Time doesn't exist. Even if we refer to the revolutions of the solar system, it is not a constant one. There is a transformation through space, degradation. The earth turns a little bit slower every two thousand years if 2,000 years exist. It doesn't exist in any way. It's more subjective than real. Time doesn't exist. I believe in memory. Memory is the real inspiration. Memory creates time. And you can see through civilization when a civilization has all tradition the civilization takes thousands and thousands of years to give an inscription the reality. When a civilization has its writing and tradition it becomes shorter. When a civilization has [inaudible phrase] in tradition it becomes shorter and more powerful. And it's pure power. Memory is pure power. Pure power and pure strength, and pure utilization of space and time (if time is something we can really ever label). But I don't believe in time itself.
SF: And did you use also human figures sometimes?
A: No-o. I use it when I used to slice sculpture. But not for
SF: To slice sculpture you mean?
A: Yes. Bronze sculpture like I bought some bronze or metal sculpture and I slanted it.
SF: Because I saw some of your -- erotic sculpture is what I might say.
A: Yes, I made that formerly but no more.
SF: Oh, that's right, that's all.
A: It was an experimentation I got. But it was more for what I put inside than really the form.
SF: Yes, and what did you put inside?
A: In one I put gloves, human hands, because I could color . . .
SF: Oh, I see, yes.
A: Yes. There was a little relation but I don't feel as easy with the relation of the human body as I feel with abstract space, geometric abstract space.
SF: And could you tell me a little bit about what they call the creative process involved in your work? By that I mean if you could tell me a little bit about the bridge between inspiration on one side and intellectual approach on the other side?
A: Oh, yes. I thought a lot about that because it's quite and interesting phenomenon not only for me but for the other artists, too. We can divide artists in two. That's always part of my game. It's not true because even we can divide humanity between man and woman because there is always some collaboration. But there are some artists I call Pavlovian.
SF: Pavlovian?
A: They react to their environment and they walk like the dog of Pavlov was eating, was making saliva when he reacted at the bell.
SF: Instinctively, you mean?
A: Yes. Instinctive artist. And the others are conceptual artists. For me, the perfect choice, the instinctive, can be a little bit conceptual on line. I consider Picasso an instinctive artist; when he is working one some tortured woman, it's a line of work. But as a piece itself I know how he starts. He starts as a gift, poetical inspiration, poetical gift and extends that more or less with destruction, addition, retraction, coming back, erasing, coming back until he feels fulfillment with the piece.
SF: Yes.
A: That is for me complete and instinctive behavior. Other artists like Mondrian (what I call conceptual artists) have a precise idea what they're going to do before they start to do it.
SF: You mean they know it?
A: They know it. I will say they have a large percentage of the vision of the piece when it is finished, maybe 70%. I'm pretty sure that Jasper Johns is a little bit of both. When Jasper Johns worked on the Ballantine Ale bronze he knew a little bit how he would make a plaster, from the plaster he made a mold in bronze, and the bronze would be painted as the Ballantine Ale can has been painted. In that whole operation you have to have a precise idea of what you will do and to have a representation of the piece, how it will be when it's finished. For the flags, too. And I call these conceptual. They have a concept of what they are doing, not only on line but on the piece itself.
SF: Yes, I understand.
A: And some are more instinctive. Rauschenberg, for instance, is an instinctive artist even when he's working on some very precise or mechanical or electronic things like those discs. With the help of a scientist or technician you can figure out the concept of the disks. What he painted on the disks has been more or less instinctive.
SF: Yes, I see.
A: And me, I belong more to the conceptual than to the instinctive.
SF: Oh, I see. You mean you have an idea or vision in your mind before you start the work?
A: What will look the piece -- a vision -- is more revision edition -- when I have an idea, it's more a vision that I thought about; before it became a vision I have an idea. For instance, some months ago I had the idea . . . .
SF: Before you started to work?
A: Yes. I had the idea when I was pushing a tube, how it would be the fact if I don't press it myself, it's mechanically made, because my pressing of the tube when I press a tube of painting --
SF: -- there's the mark of yourself --
A: My gesture, my rhythm. I thought if it was just made mechanically at that is true. And I started to talk about it to friends with some ideas, and for finish after a long time of talking about it and turning the idea over in my mind, making small sketches sometimes of the operation, I made a tortured color tube. It's pressed between two sheets of Plexiglas with screws and ring nuts. But, before I made the first one, I had to have a clear idea of how it would look.
SF: Before you start.
A: Before I start.
SF: And then, while in the process of doing it, you might change maybe a little bit? Or . . . ?
A: The least possible. I hate any kind of change. Accidents happen always, especially in the field of plastics or in the field of color. But I'm not that happy over accidents. If I can avoid accident, I avoid accident. I prefer the biggest percentage closest to the first idea I had of the piece before I started.
SF: Oh, I see. But how much importance, for instance, do you give to the sensibility of the artist? Is it to be apparent in a work of art? Or . . . ?
A: For me it's not very important. Everybody is sensitive. Everybody is an artist. Everybody is a musician. It's just specialization. Our civilization is a civilization of specialization. You kill every kind of natural need very young in the child. Primitive tribes, or primitive human groups when it's a festival, if there's a celebration, religious or not, everybody can express himself by participating in the religious festivities or celebration of the tribe, by painting, by dancing, by playing music, by building things, by carving things; everybody participates. Our civilization puts so much pressure on the child very young, with the proper time when you have to be clean, and with the relationship of the group very tribal, and with the obligation to learn a lot of things very young that you kill off those spontaneous expressions that pretty much everybody has. I'm pretty sure that if you brought me every kind of kid of twelve, thirteen, fourteen before it's too late that I could make an artist of him, maybe not a genius, but a passable artist. And it will not be somebody who will do something like me.
SF: Yes. But something personal.
A: I'm pretty sure of that. And they will do personal things.
SF: You think everybody has a need of . . . ?
A: It's like the smell of everybody: everybody has a different smell. It's called "odor sui generis." The sensitivity of sensitivity is intellectual "odor sui generis." [INTERRUPTION FOR PHONE CALL.]
SF: What do you think of the education of the audience?
A: Well, I guess it's most automatic. It's a question of civilization. A civilization like the American way of life with a kind of leisure time, which means less time spent at work and you have more time . . . . When you have everything you need, when you have enough food, enough transportation, enough roof above your head, the next need is culture. The first next need is culture. Sure, for some . . . .
SF: You think it's really a need?
A: Oh, that becomes very quickly a need. Even for very poor people it's a need. But that spreads out easier when you get everything you want. It reminds me of the bandarlog (the monkeys in the Rudyard Kipling novel, The Jungle Book.) There is always desire of limitation. We are primates in a way. And we do everything. And when, if by any chance in a movie or visiting somebody, you see some improvement in the environment among everything you know. Somebody has something hanging on the wall. Well, what is that? And that leads to questions. I guess it's the information of the audience becomes almost automatic. Sure. It can be helped.
SF: Yes, it can be helped.
A: Yes, it can be helped. The Musee l'Homme exhibition is free. But I'm a little bit against the avant garde on the street that I saw in New York.
SF: What do you mean by avant garde on the street in New York?
A: Like modern sculpture in the street.
SF: Oh, I see.
A: Very huge work. Because I see how people treat them. They spread them. They put posters on them. They scratch them.
SF: So you think that the audience in a way has to be educated to appreciate a work of art?
A: Well, yes and no. You are not to force the education. It's an automatic education, the average. And to do something, to create, is always to be in advance of civilization. You don't do things for the average person. That's not true. Nobody does things for the average person, because if he does something for the average person who is not in revolt, who doesn't want to make . . . .
SF: Well, who does he do it for?
A: He does it first for himself because he has the very strong impression that there can be some improvement. You take knowledge of the history of art. As an artist, you know that some other artist did some things. And suddenly you don't accept it. If you accept what has been done completely and you agree completely, you do not have the desire to do something yourself. Because, when you are very young, the only desire you have is to change the world. You believe you will change the world. After you become a little bit older, you see that you just put another layer of varnish on the civilization. But it's all right. But it's impossible; it's exactly the same problem to educate all the audience would be to change the world. You can't change the world. It has to be done step by step. Now, the general audience was either to accept Impressionism and partially Cubism. But no more: in twenty years there is an acceleration of information. Information is a very interesting phenomenon with books, color books, books with good colored illustrations, tv, color tv, movies. These are mass media information that are very strong. And when you see in an adventure color movie any kind of modern literature, modern painting, modern design, you impress the imagination of the average person who comes in contact with that. And that's part of education. It's auto-education by accumulation of information. And you can help it but you can't force it.
SF: Yes, I understand. And what do you think, though, might be the role of the art critic? Do you think he must just show the work of art as it is? Or do you think he has to interpret it?
A: The art critic?
SF: Yes.
A: The art critic must be a kind of witch doctor.
SF: A witch doctor?
A: Yes. He has to play between different strains. He has to play to, he has to mix different ingredients. One is the knowledge or acceptance of the audience. The other is the imagination and creativity of the artist. And it's a very difficult role because, in a way, he is like a witch doctor: he has to help the artist sometimes to bear, to give birth to his work or his imagination by some positive or negative position. The artist has to be individual enough to keep his individuality. And it's very important to bring those to the audience, too, because the audience is not completely aware and can take most everything as a good product. And I guess the art critic has a very difficult position like a decouvreur -- how do you say it in English?
SF: A discoverer? Somebody who discovers.
A: A discoverer. And make a quite clear discovery because . . . okay, for sure . . . .
SF: Or "searcher" might be a better word.
A: A searcher, yes. A talent scout; a searcher. But it's a little bit different than a talent scout because he has to be, not aware of what is the need of the audience, but aware of what the artist is bringing. Because when we take the phenomenon of Noland, for instance, who makes circles part of his life, makes very well-made circles, some art historians say, well, but Sonia Delaunay before him made similar circles. But when Noland took off circles completely out of any kind of aesthetic context, there were some L's on the very large canvas and very pure composition less mixed up and less Cubist than Delaunay, he brought something And it's important that an art critic to be able to see what has been brought. But, if somebody else now made circles like Noland and maybe a little bit more attractive, but with some fancy colors, but doesn't bring anything new, the art critic has to be able to see what is not brought. And that's quite important. It's a difficult chore. He can be wrong. He is wrong a lot of times.
SF: That's what I mean.
A: But he has to -- it's a little bit like a judge will separate the good coin from the bad one. And sometimes you are pushed, even if you have a good coin and a bad. But you have to have enough guts to come back and -- well, it's a kind of game. They are a witch doctor like in a tribe. The young men have to prove that they are men and they have a lot of epreuve -- how do you say that in English?
SF: Experience.
A: Experience to complete a lot of -- to get their badge as a male of the tribe. And the artists in a society have a kind of -- badge of virility, obstacles to pass. And it's quite interesting. And one role of the critic is to make things difficult for the artist in a good way, a positive way, and easier for the audience in a good way, too.
SF: Yes. Arman, as a French artist and European artist, and in your case living half a year in New York . . .
A: A little bit more than a half year.
SF: A little bit more; eight months.
A: Seven or eight months.
SF: Do you think that there is in a way a difference between European artists and American artists? Do you think that they approach art in a different way? What do you think?
A: No that much. Maybe the relationship with society is a little bit different. But the approach . . . .
SF: The relationship is not the same?
A: Yes. I could see many American artists who have lived for years in Europe, Sam Francis, for instance, [Paul] Jenkins, or Cy Twombly, become really like the others. And I could see a lot of European artists after a few years, like Claes Oldenberg -- no, not really Claes Oldenberg (he was born in Sweden), or like Marisol who was basically educated in Europe, or like Falstrom. I could see them, after a time, living (but really living, not just passing a month or two months) in America. I guess if they are artists, they react alike; the same kind of animals. But the basic relationship to society is the same. The society here likes winners, more than European society does.
SF: No, I was thinking of the civilization, these two different civilizations -- the European one and the American one -- now, it's a kind of globalisme now. But do you think that it can influence the artist?
A: Oh, yes.
SF: That's what I mean; that's why I'm asking you this question.
A: The biggest example has been the result, the famous result, the Pop art. The interaction of this everyday life on the artist with such strong feeling and so great originality, the originality on the American side. That has been quite strong.
SF: It's really the American side they're emphasizing?
A: Yes.
SF: And would you say that Pop Art in a way has influenced you?
A: Not very much. I'm not very much a Pop artist. I'm more post-surrealist, post-Dadaist than really a Pop artist. I may have been influenced by the country, by the society, by the production. I'm fascinated by all the phenomenon which is production, construction, many times there is a big accumulation and everything. I've been very influenced by that; more than by Pop art itself. [BREAK IN RECORDING]
SF: Yes. Arman, do you think that emotional stability and financial security have an influence on the artist? I mean on the way he creates?
A: In his work?
SF: Yes.
A: Oh, yes, certainly. And through the history of art we can see through the emotional life, and sometimes the financial security of some of the artists, some transformation. And I really believe that it's generally about the same kind of transformation and the same kind of reaction. We are a little bit less individual than we would like to believe or guess we are.
SF: Less individual??
A: Less individual. You know, there are some primary reactions that when you divide that five or six times you get always some kind of pattern. And I'm pretty sure that emotional stability can bring a lot of possibilities to an artist, a little bit like the old expression some analysts use when they say, well, maybe you don't need analysis but you are like a V-8 engine which is running on five or six cylinders instead of eight. Sure I believe that for every good artist (and by "good " artist I mean somebody who brought or is bringing something with him in the history of art) financial and emotional stability makes for improvement.
SF: It is necessary?
A: It is not always necessary. Sometimes you can make a masterpiece if you are really a genius and if you have enough things to say. But I believe that it can be an improvement.
SF: But do you think that -- I was thinking of psychoanalysts, for instance -- and do you think that if an artist is more and more conscious of himself, I mean in life, do you think that that can in a way be against his being creative?
A: It depends on what is the background of the artist.
SF: The background?
A: Yes. If he's been used to taking discipline for a long time, the knowledge of himself will be an incoming, but if [inaudible phrase] behavior he has to face some of his own reality that he couldn't really afford, it could be a catastrophe.
SF: By catastrophe you mean if he is more aware of himself?
A: Not aware of himself but if you start to ask him some questions, if he's not prepared, ask him some questions: is it valuable or not? What is his position in life and society?
SF: He loses his spontaneity in a way?
A: He might. But if he's used to dealing with intellectual discipline for a long time, every kind of knowledge of himself or every kind of discovery of what are his primary, his deep reactions and what he is and what is the constitution of his work is an income (advantage). I'm pretty sure of it. It's like if you take an African carver and you bring him, inject him into civilization and start to make him think what he's carving and to make a relationship with society and himself and what he's doing, I'm afraid he might become completely impotent.
SF: Yes. I understand now in that sense, yes.
A: By chance he will be on the town in a town like New York, the American civilization, everybody is quite well-trained to think through analysis or through the Talmud or through any kind of intellectual game or training.
SF: Are you concerned by the social and political problems of the day? Do you think that the artist . . . ?
A: Well, political, yes, at least. Because they involve life itself. Social problems less. They can interest me very selfishly if I can get something to eat. But political problems involve me more deeply because just the future of what we are and the future of life. Sometimes it's very important.
SF: In general I think that the artists do remain outside the problems even though they remain . . . .
A: L'auto devoir, as we say in France.
SF: Not L'auto devoir, no. I think more that they remain in their own world. And they have to remain there.
A: Yes. Okay. We try. It's always very good protection but it's difficult especially with the immensity of information, the strength or the power of the diffusion of information is that it's difficult to -- you have to go on an island and cut the wire. It's very difficult. And I found that it's less difficult to cut the wire here in New York, for instance, than in Paris. Because if you want to be a little bit solitary and work very hard, you can do it more easily in New York than in a town like Paris or London. Because you depend so much for human relationships here on the phone. If you don't answer your phone, you are quite a lonely couple.
SF: You can be alone?
A: Yes. And in London and in Paris, you're always outside and seeing people and you can't avoid meeting people. Everybody is dropping in, visiting you without warning. Especially for Americans, it's quite shocking sometimes when you're in Italy or the South of France or Spain that suddenly somebody is knocking on the door. It's a friend, somebody is dropping in; like that. You don't feel that your time is your own, really.
SF: That the time is yours. Right. [MACHINE TURNED OFF] [END OF INTERVIEW] NOTE: On another tape (the one shared with Bernard Venet) Sevim Fesci further interviewed Arman on May 18, 1968. But the conversation is entirely in French. Therefore it has not been transcribed.
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This transcript is in the public domain and may be used without permission. Quotes and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with Arman, 1968 May 18, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.