"Eros Inside Eros", at Hirshhorn Sculpture Garden

(Picture courtesy of sorakirei at flickr.com.)

The composition is almost the predominant theme of ‘Eros Inside Eros’ in the Hirshhorn Sculpture Garden.   A sliced composition made of repeated images of the god’s head, the sculpture shows the feature of decomposition/recomposition that distinguishes much of Arman’s work.

…Arman began work on large public sculptures. There were varied expansions of the accumulations, their content included tools, watches, clocks, furniture, automobile parts, jewelry, and, of course, musical instruments in various stages of dismemberment. Musical instruments, specifically the strings[3] and bronze, through his collaboration with a foundry in Normandy, France, became a major avenue in Arman’s work.

His early career was one of eclectic public expositions that included filling a space with garbage, ‘La Plein’, and works called stamps created on paper and fabric.   He found a comfortable medium in accumulations of found and identical objects, which became his main medium.

The method of making identical accumulated images became a favorite when public reaction to the sculptures featuring this method received growing attention.    His works included many iconoclastic events like strewing garbage and destruction images.  A collection of auto bodies, Long Term Parking, is the largest.

The artist is featured in one of Warhol’s enigmatic studies, a film in which Arman seems oblivious to the camera and going about his activity reading a newspaper.

The comment on Eros Inside Eros found at Wikipedia flounders to tell what it signifies; ‘the work comments on the emptiness of the god, Eros.[3]‘

(Picture courtesy of OnePinkHippo at flickr.com.)

Arman's Eros Inside Eros