Les Coléres
THE RAGES OF ARMAN
It is said that the Zen master Ikkyu, while being apprenticed as a child, once broke his benefactor’s teacup. When the teacher entered the room, Ikkyu hid the cup and asked him, “Why do people have to die?” The teacher responded that death is a part of life, and all humans must meet their end sooner or later. Ikkyu then produced the shattered cup, stating, “It was time for your teacup to die.”29
Certain art forms, such as images drawn on the beach at low tide or in the accumulated dust on a vehicle, are inherently prone to deterioration. French-born artist Arman, however, showcased acts of sudden and deliberate destruction via a series of performance pieces known as les Colères, or the Rages.
Throughout the 1960s and ’70s, Arman violently smashed musical instruments, furniture, cash registers, and coffee grinders in public. Many of the dismembered objects were later embedded in polyester, concrete, or plaster, permanently preserving the wreckage.
Despite the name, however, the Rages were not a showcase of cathartic violence itself, but rather of the transformation undergone by the subjects.30 Arman hoped to capture a “freeze frame” of the precise moment at which an object dangled between integrity and destruction.
To be sure, sudden destruction is just as much an integral part of life as the gradual, evolutionary weathering brought on by wind, rain, and sea. Having studied Zen Buddhism,31 the late artist was wont to ponder the impermanence of all that exists. —DJS