'I have been quite fascinated by the transformation of the object through civilisation and of the history of art.'
Arman

Arman was born Armand Pierre Fernandez in Nice, France in 1928. He was the son of an antiques dealer and amateur cellist, and studied at the École Nationale des Arts Décoratifs in Nice before moving to Paris in 1949, where he attended the École du Louvre and specialised in archaeology and oriental art. His art—which spans sculpture, drawing, prints, public monuments, installations, paintings, and found objects—is strongly informed by the irreverent legacies of Dada and Surrealism. Between the late 1950s and early 1960s, Arman defined his signature Nouveau Réalisme style alongside artists such as Yves Klein, and produced two of his most iconic sculptural concepts: the Accumulations and Poubelles. The first saw the artist assemble vast quantities of identical man-made objects—watches, sieves, hammers, saxophones, pressed shirts—and the second comprised of plexiglass vitrines filled with clutter of another kind—namely waste materials.

The present work, a large-scale and noble bronze patinated bust, demonstrates Arman’s prevailing fascination with principles of originality, production, and singularity. It belongs to his series of ‘Interactives’: a body of radical sculptural works begun in 1968 and continued until his death in 2005, that reconfigure antique statues into new, adjustable compositions through slicing and hinges. Here, Arman mimics ancient representations of Lucius Aurelius Verus, who, with his adopted brother Marcus Aurelius, was co-emperor of the Roman Empire from 161 AD until his death in 169 AD. The work is hinged at Verus’s temples and shoulders, so that distinct bronze sections can be opened and closed, revealing the sculpture’s hollow interior. The technique pays homage to Surrealist artist Salvador Dalí’s own memorable adaptations of classical sculpture: his Venus de Milo with Drawers (1936) reproduced the famous Hellenistic marble original in half-size, and as an anthropomorphic cabinet with pom-pom drawers in place of breasts, the abdomen, bent knee, and head.