ARTIST SPOTLIGHT: DANIEL ARSHAM

Sculptor, Painter, Clothing Designer & More.

Daniel Arsham (41) is an artist born in Cleveland, Ohio, raised in Miami, Florida, and educated in NYC, New York. Arsham received his formal college education at The Cooper Union to which he credits much of his formation as an artist seen by his active donations and talks at his alma mater.

“This work for me is not about progress. It is about destruction and growth and where they are able to meet in the middle.”

A quote from Arsham that is embodied in future relics which has recently been the focus of his work. Through sculptures, casts, and paintings, Arsham has worked with an interesting concept regarding the "future past". He creates pieces inspired by traditional styles or containing traditional forms but reimagines them in futuristic settings. Some examples of this are his "eroded" Pokemon sculptures in which he will create a figure with missing chunks instead filled by quarts and selenite. This conveys the idea of something ancient, a stone sculpture, of a contemporary character. Other examples include paintings of larger than life busts of Greek or Roman figures discovered seemingly millennia later by modern explorers. These works are then dated circa 3020 and 3021--one thousand years later--to embrace the idea of the future and the past interweaving.

Arsham's Art in History

3021 is a perfect example of contemporary material culture. The idea of our current course as the human race potentially leading us to an era in which our current world is a relic of the past, one to be uncovered by a future society, is Arsham's way of tying our dying world to the cyclic nature of history with the rise and fall of empires. This juxtaposed with Arsham's prolific work with certain brands through collaborations and his own endeavors adds to the idea of the contemporary eventually fading into the historical. Such an example is when Arsham connected "3021" to a collaboration with Tiffany & Co or his numerous molds of "eroded" stone Porsches.

Altogether, Arsham is an artist with a unique take on the world around him. Creatives across the globe admire him and want to work with him, so it's clear that he's doing something right. What he'll do next, however, is still yet to be seen.