On the occasion of its next Modern and Contemporary Art auction on Wednesday 25 November 2020, the PIASA auction house is offering collectors several works of art by Arman, emblematic artists from the second half of the 20th century.
"Umberto Eco: Do you have a guillotine?
Arman : Yes, I worked on a real guillotine.
E.U. Ah! Did you make it?
A. No, I didn't make it, I ordered it from a guillotine manufacturer.
E.U. Ah! You didn't buy it...
A. Second hand? No, I had a guillotine made.
E.U. For the cigars?
A. No, no .... In France, next to Paris, there is a guillotine factory and they deliver all over the world, for films, for theatre, for horror museums, for
collectors. The guillotine is still a good business.
U.E. And you chose the guillotine. From a certain point of view, negative symbol of the century, or positive symbol, the death of the tyrant.
A. Yes, but it is not the solution. And this guillotine, I demolish it, I torture it, I turn it into a dreadful anger. Because even if the Revolution was something good, we notice that revolutions always end in executions. There was a very beautiful film called "The Professionals" with Burt Lancaster, where they are paid by a very rich railway owner to get his wife back who is a prisoner of a bandit in Mexico City. And they were old friends who had made the revolution together in Mexico in the 19th century.
At one point, they get hurt and talk to each other, and one of them says, "The revolution is like a woman, it's like a whore, we wanted it, we got it, but we're always cheated. "It was a very beautiful film. And it's true that revolutions always have a rather sinister procession. The last revolution of this century, the Bolshevik revolution, the Islamic revolution, all revolutions, whatever they may be, have always ended with scaffolding, executions. The Spanish revolution ended in blood, the revolutionaries were beaten, but they did some horrors. I always have this image of a procession, that thing that accompanies revolutions that are executions. It's also a position.
E.U. Liberation, death."
Arman (Armand Fernandez) (1928-2005)
"Roi soleil cou coupe", 2000
Estimate : 40000 / 60000 €
Conversation between Arman and Umberto Eco in exp. cat. Paris, Couvent des Cordeliers, "Vingt siècles vus par Arman, 20 Stations de l'objet", December 2000-March 2001, n.p.
