Arman | MIC International Museum of Ceramics in Faenza

Franco and Roberta Calarota present Arman at MIC - Museo Internazionale della Ceramica in Faenza with a solo exhibition and a series of ceramic works that the master of Nouveau Réalisme has created for the occasion. The element that characterizes the protagonist creations of this exhibition is the Italian context from which the French artist takes inspiration: in Arabique Ceramique the ancient coffee grinder appears, transporting the viewer to some old kitchen of the "Bel Paese", in atmospheres also evoked in the work Quatre ètages de conversation, where a multitude of coffee carafes are aligned to pay homage to Italy and to one of its timeless masters, Giorgio Morandi. Among the other works in the exhibition are Homage to Mother, an assemblage of antique sewing machines charged with symbolism linked to the artist's memory, Le Bielles coulées, in which the principle of accumulation is projected onto a series of car engines reproduced in ceramic, and the iconic Piccin gari or Topolino, a ceramic sculptural assemblage that reproduces a Fiat 500 and presents itself to the viewer as a monumental formula aimed at investigating the mythology of seriality and the banalization of taste. Finally, musical instruments are emblematic and recurrent elements in Arman's art, of which the work Violino (Violin) can be admired on display. Arman's shattered and reassembled violins are configured as a critique of an increasingly consumerist world: as the artist says, "we no longer repair, we destroy, we throw away, we reduce to pulp." (Arman, L'adventure de l'arte moderne, interview by Andrè Parinaud, in “Lettres Arts”, Paris, 1978).