Though enigmatic, the title is clear: this sculpture is the fusion of an elephant and a motorcycle. The two images are reproduced in a realistic style, so as to be instantly recognisable. But the piece as a whole is layered with complexity and irony. In Motophant, the images belong expressive...
Though enigmatic, the title is clear: this sculpture is the fusion of an elephant and a motorcycle. The two images are reproduced in a realistic style, so as to be instantly recognisable. But the piece as a whole is layered with complexity and irony. In Motophant, the images belong expressively to two distinct, if not diametrically opposed worlds, the animal kingdom and the technological sphere. Motophant was exhibited at the 2nd Biennale de Sculpture de Monte-Carlo in 1989. The work was also part of the Lugano-Monaco exchange in August and September 1996.
Arman (Armand Fernandez), born in 1928 in Nice, was a French artist: a painter, sculptor and plastic artist. He studied at the École des Arts Décoratifs in Nice and then at the École du Louvre in Paris. Linked to Yves Klein from 1946 onwards, in 1960 Arman helped to found Pierre Restany’s Nouveau Réalisme (New Realism) group, known as the Nice School. Arman, who signed his works with his first name as a tribute to Van Gogh, decided to abandon the “d” in “Armand” and officially adopted his artist’s signature at an exhibition at Iris Clert in 1958. In response to Yves Klein’s Void, his approach is the starting point for the “Accumulations” and “Angers” which remain the two strands of his appropriation of the object. He participated in many exhibitions in France and abroad. From 1961 onwards, Arman lived and worked in New York, often visiting Nice and Vence. He exhibited regularly in Monaco. Throughout his life, Arman was also an enthusiastic collector of everyday objects (watches, weapons, pens, etc.) and works of art, particularly traditional African art, a field in which he was a highly valued and renowned expert. He died in 2005 in New York.
