Daniel Arsham

Daniel Arsham (born 1980) is an American artist.

He lives and works in New York City.

Born in Cleveland, Ohio and raised in Miami, Florida, Arsham was 12 when Hurricane Andrew destroyed his childhood home.

This traumatic event has been a continuous theme through his work.

Fond of arts and mathematics, Arsham attended the Design and Architecture High School and was awarded a full scholarship to The Cooper Union in New York City.

Arsham received the Gelman Trust Fellowship Award in 2003, and he won the 37th GNMH Award.

After graduating from school, Arsham moved back to Miami and started an exhibition space called "The House" with several artist friends.

It was through The House that Arsham met Emmanuel Perrotin in 2004.

By 2005, Galerie Perrotin in Paris was representing Arsham.

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.

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.

In 2006, modern dance choreographer Merce Cunningham asked Arsham to design the set, lighting and costumes for his piece, "eyeSpace."

Arsham founded Snarkitecture with 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.

The performance premiered in 2007 at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts in downtown Miami.

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" combines Arsham's architectural practice Snarkitecture with his performance work with Bokaer.

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.

"Why Patterns" had its world premier at Rotterdamse Schouwburg 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.

In 2014 Arsham established a film company called Films of the Future.

This production company synthesizes all of Arsham's creative output over the previous decade, creating a visual setting in which his otherworldly and futuristic artwork might exist.

His debut series, Future Relic, consists of nine short films which 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 film series entitled Hourglass is a trio of films created in collaboration with Adidas.

The trilogy follows an autobiographical story of Daniel in the past, present, and future as he travels through time wearing Adidas Originals X Daniel Arsham collaborative sneakers.

In 2014, Arsham was named as one of Hypebeast's HB100 list, and has continued to remain on the Top 100 list to date.

Some of Arsham's more recent collaborative endeavors exist in the fashion world.

These include projects with brands such as Tiffany, Adidas, Dior, Toraichi, Byredo, Rimowa, and Porsche.

The collaboration between Daniel Arsham X Dior SS20 includes apparel, jewelry, accessories, and shoes inspired by Arsham's sculptures and artwork.

Arsham's work has been shown at PS1 in New York, The Museum of Contemporary Art in Miami, The Athens Biennale 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.

Kim Jones, artistic director of Dior Homme, enlisted Arsham's help in the Spring/Summer 2020 season.