Daniel Arsham New York-based artist balances the line between art, architecture, and performance. He is breaking all barriers in the contemporary art world in a truly incredible melding of architecture and contrasting material.
His art focuses heavily on the combination of natural forces meeting architecture in examples of decay, destruction, and general cognitive dissonance. For his modern sculptures, he uses basic materials like broken glass or hydrostone to produce life-size human figures and technological objects like boom boxes, cameras, and video game controllers.
See also: Gigantic Felt Sculptures by Paolo Del Toro
In his recent artworks, Arsham focuses more intently on the human figure, creating full bodies and discrete gestures like hands folded in prayer, clasped together, or clutching a basketball.
In each, the contemporary sculpture is seen in various states of decomposition, chunks missing from the work like it has been eaten away by some menacing force. Erosion is most apparent in the full body sculptures as entire knees, legs, and torsos are removed from the form. Some of these sculptures keep a neutral palette—the pyrite, hydrostone, selenite, and obsidian used in their construction giving each a matte gray in order to focus on their crumbling form.
“Simple yet paradoxical gestures dominate his sculptural work: a façade that appears to billow in the wind, a figure wrapped up in the surface of a wall, a contemporary object cast in volcanic ash as if it was found on some future archeological site.
Structural experiment, historical inquiry, and satirical wit all combine in Arsham’s ongoing interrogation of the real and the imagined. ”
Arsham’s most recent collaboration with world-renowned musician and producer Pharrell Williams involved the recreation in Volcanic Ash of Pharrell’s first keyboard.
Source: Daniel Arsham
