Arman
Accord Final, 1981
Cast bronze
Museum Purchase with Student Government Association funds and Gift of the Scaler Foundation
Arman made Accord Final, subtitled They Wouldn’t Let Me Play Carnegie Hall, by destroying a baby grand piano and then casting the remnants in bronze. The artist had already done a series of broken violins and cellos. He stated that they, “…were accepted by all kinds of people. A violin even when broken has a kind of appeal, especially when set in bronze.” However, Arman worried about the popularity of his sculptures made from musical instruments. He said, “It can be difficult when something is so successful, it can be a danger when something is so successful.”
Arman didn’t necessarily want us to admire the beauty of his sculptures. As one of the founders of the Nouveau Realisme or New Realism movement, Arman often used real objects in his work. However, unlike the American Pop artists he admired, Arman’s sculptures contain an element of critique. His early accumulations and Poubelles, or trash cans, showed the dangers of materialism and mass production. He even began destroying objects in a series called Rages to show his anger with consumerism.
Arman’s destruction isn’t necessarily negative, though. He noted that, “You have to remember that it was a controlled destruction, partial not total. It considered the dying of things, and to recycle and rebuild something from that. It was not a destruction that would obliterate completely.” Accord Final shows the beauty in demolition. Perpetually suspended in the moment of annihilation, the instrument seems to come to life, flying, smashing, and crashing, in a series of jagged diagonals. You can almost hear the cacophony of the piano as it hits the ground. The split open baby grand also invites us in, to admire the complexity of its elaborate inner workings, something we rarely notice.