Arman was a French-born American sculptor associated with Nouveau Réalisme, a French movement that evolved in parallel with Pop art in the 1960s. Like his peers, Arman was influenced by Marcel Duchamp and the Dada movement, and he too explored the use of readymade objects alongside themes of repetition, mass production, commodification, waste, and destruction. In Glenstone’s collection is Home Sweet Home II, 1960, a conglomeration of gas masks in a wooden box. This work is an example of Arman’s Accumulations, a long-standing series made using found objects arranged in wall-mounted boxes. The work’s sweet title betrays its darker implications, evoking the realities of European wartime life and its material residue.

–Karen Vidangos, from the Glenstone Field Guide