Daniel Arsham

Arsham's multidisciplinary art combines art, architecture and performance. Raised in Miami, Florida, Arsham was just 12 when Hurricane Andrew destroyed his home. This traumatic event continues to be a theme in his work. [1] Arsham attended the Design and Architecture High School and was awarded a full scholarship to The Cooper Union in New York City. [2] He received the Gelman Trust Fellowship Award in 2003.

After graduating from school, Arsham moved back to Miami and started an exhibition space called “The House” with several artist friends. [3] It was through The House that Daniel met Emmanuel Perrotin in 2004. By 2005, Gallerie Perrotin (Paris) represented Daniel Arsham. [4]

Soon thereafter Arsham was invited to create stage design and tour with choreographer Merce Cunningham’s Dance Company leading to ongoing stage design practice and a sustained collaboration with choreographer and former Cunningham dancer, Jonah Bokaer.

Arsham founded Snarkitecture with partner Alex Mustonen in 2007. The architecture collaboration has included work with fashion brands, interior and architectural design, and a complete line of functional design objects.

In 2014 Arsham’s, Films of the Future was born. This production company synthesizes all of Arsham’s creative output over the last decade and creates a visual setting in which his otherworldly and futuristic artwork might exist. His debut series, Future Relic,[5] is two years in the making and consists of nine short films that depict a future civilization before and after Earth undergoes major ecological changes. The series also includes sculptures of petrified twentieth-century media artifacts constructed to look like artifacts decaying from obsolescence.

Arsham’s most recent series is Hourglass, a trio of films sponsored by Adidas shoes. The trilogy follows Daniel in the past, present, and future as he travels through time wearing Adidas Originals X Daniel Arsham’s collaborative sneakers.[6]

In 2017, he was named to HypeBeast's HB100 list for their top 100 influencers in the industry.[7]

Some of Arsham’s more recent endeavors are in the fashion world, including collaborations with adidas Originals and Kim Jones of Dior. Daniel Arsham X Dior SS20 includes apparel, jewelry, accessories, and shoes inspired by Arsham’s sculptures and artwork.[8]

Arsham’s work has been shown at PS1 in New York, The Museum of Contemporary Art in Miami, The Athens Bienniale in Athens, Greece, The New Museum In New York, Mills College Art Museum in Oakland, Cincinnati CAC, SCAD Museum of Art in Savannah GA, California and Carré d’Art de Nîmes, France among others.[9]

Merce Cunningham

In 2006, modern dance choreographer Merce Cunningham asked Arsham to design the set, lighting and costumes for his piece, "eyeSpace."[10] The performance premiered in 2007 at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts in downtown Miami. Arsham, the youngest artist invited to work with the company, was also the last artist to collaborate with Cunningham before the choreographer's death in 2009. The two worked on a series of performances as part of the Festival National de Danse de Val-de-Marne. For these performances, Cunningham asked Arsham to recreate the style of set design originally explored by Merce and Robert Rauschenberg.

Set design for Merce Cunningham's "EyeSpace" performance.

Hedi Slimane

In 2005, Arsham was commissioned by fashion designer Hedi Slimane to design the fitting rooms for Dior Homme's Los Angeles shop. Slimane's only limitations were that the rooms have "a hook, a seat and a mirror." Arsham's design incorporates his signature plaster erosions: the white fitting room walls seem to melt onto the bench, the mirror appears to have been excavated from the wall.

Jonah Bokaer

In 2007, Jonah Bokaer performed choreography inspired by Arsham's work at Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin in Paris. Bokaer, previously a dancer for the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, is a media-artist and choreographer. Bokaer and Arsham collaborated on "REPLICA," a piece that incorporates built space, objects, and lighting in an exploration of memory loss, pattern recognition, and perceptual faculties. The performance had its world premier at IVAM in Valencia, Spain as part of Robert Wilson (director) exhibition "Frontiers." "REPLICA" toured and performed at The New Museum in New York City and Harman Center for the Arts in Washington, DC.

Their new collaboration "Why Patterns"[11] combines Arsham's architectural practice Snarkitecture with his performance work with Bokaer. "Why Patterns" had its world premier at Rotterdamse Schouwburg[12] in Rotterdam, Netherlands in February 2010. The dance's U.S. premiere took place at Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival in Massachusetts in August 2011.

Kim Jones

Kim Jones, artistic director of Dior Men, enlisted Arsham’s help in the Spring/Summer 2020 season. [13] Arsham did the runway set design for the show, created ad campaigns, and released a ‘Future Relics’ capsule of iconic Dior collectibles. The collection includes wardrobe staples, jewelry, sneakers, and hats inspired by Arsham’s artwork.

Hajime Sorayama

Japanese illustrator Hajime Sorayama approached Arsham in 2017 with an idea for a collaborative work. Two years later this idea came to fruition when the Japanese art dealer NANZUKA’s “2G” studio displayed Arsham & Sorayama’s work. One of the more popular pieces is a female robot arm made by Sorayama holding hands with Arsham’s eroded crystal arm. [14]

Ronnie Fieg

Longtime friends Ronnie Fieg and Daniel Arshman have collaborated on numerous projects. Snarkitecture has designed six KITH stores, located in New York, Miami, and Los Angeles among others. [15] In June 2017, Daniel Arsham and adidas’ New Installation opened at KITH New York. The store was transformed into a “audio, visual and tactile experience” with a functioning New York payphone as the centerpiece, painted in adidas’ signature blue. [16] October 2017 marked the opening of the Arsham Fieg gallery located inside KITH New York. The gallery has had exhibitions from FriendsWithYou, Evren Erol, Youn Lee, Mike Lee and Sam Friedman. [17]

Snarkitecture

Snarkitecture is a collaborative practice established by Arsham and architect Alex Mustonen in 2008. Rather than make architecture, the interest of Snarkitecture lies in the exploration of existing materials within a space and how they might be manipulated to serve a new and imaginative purpose. The firm makes architecture do things it is not intended to do. In collaboration with Arsham, the practice has been commissioned for two public art projects at the new Marlins Park.[18]

Daniel Arsham/Snarkitecture were selected as one of three artists to contribute artwork to the new baseball stadium located on the site of the Orange Bowl near downtown Miami, scheduled to open in 2012. Their project for the illumination of the four super columns supporting the retractable roof gives the illusion of the columns being concealed and revealed through as light fades up and down the columns. A second project for a marker to commemorate the site of the former Orange Bowl reimagines the letters from the former Orange Bowl sign as 10 foot concrete letters dispersed in various positions through the east plaza of the new ballpark. The letters are arranged so that they appear to spell different words as visitors move through the plaza.[18]

In 2018 the pair created "Dig," an architectural intervention at Storefront for Art and Architecture in New York City. As an investigation of the "architecture of excavation," Storefront's gallery space was infilled with a solid volume of EPS architectural foam that was then excavated by hand using hand tools to create "a cavernous space for work and play." Snarkitecture also designed the A+ Award for the online publication Architizer.

Recently, Daniel Arsham and Alex Mustonen started a scholarship at Cooper Union called the Snarkitecture Commencement prize. This prize is awarded to a graduating student who “demonstrates a committed interest in exploring the peripheries of their discipline in pursuit of the unexpected.” [19]

• Official website
• Daniel Arsham at Perrotin.com
• Daniel Arsham at Moran Moran gallery
• Imaginarium of Mr. Arsham, NY Times Style Magazine
• In the Spirit of Modernist Ideals, The New York Times
• Two Men, 25,000 Ping Pong Balls and a Rabbit, New York Magazine