Army tanks and armoured vehicles ambedded in concrete. 30 m - 4000 tonnes. Beyrouth, district of Yarzé, Lebanon.

Five thousand tons of concrete, 30 meters high, clasped around 78 tanks, jeeps and various artillery parts : this was Arman's very last monumental sculpture, erected in Beirut, in front of the Ministry of Defence. It is a works wich strongly denounces the follies of man, with its defiantly ironic title "Hope for Peace". By its size, its cut, its harmonious appearance, it is a remarkable reflection of the image of a city which had long been reduced to the vision of buildings in ruins. Arman had been thinking about doing this sculpture for a long time [...]. It focuses on both the cause and its effects. It blends shows machines alongside the results of their destruction. And if one is given to dreaming of a time when all these killing machines enshrouded in such masses of concrete with their symbolic protrusions are concealed beneath the surface.

source : Catalogue Arman (edition Galerie enrico Navarra)