Repeated Wants, Building Blocks and Backdrops: An Interview with Daniel Arsham

Daniel Arsham. WANT, 2001. Wood, Paint, Lights. 48” x 24” x 40", 1/1

By Claire Breukel

Aside from being renowned for his unique art style, twenty-eight year old Daniel Arsham left his impression on Miami, cofounding two prolific artist-run spaces, The House and Placemaker. This experience combined with Arsham’s architectural background progressively informed his art practice, organically moving between aspects of art, architecture and more recently theater. His sculptures and drawings are illusory, transforming architectural and natural forms with supernatural and uncanny effect, and have been included in key exhibitions “Miami in Transition at the Miami Art Museum; “Fresh” at the Museum of Glass, Tacoma; “Greater New York and P.S.1″ at the Museum of Modern Art, New York.  Featured in three group exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Miami, Arsham is also included in the permanent collection. Here came his introduction to the theater world, through legendary choreographer Merce Cunningham, who selected Arsham to collaborate on the project Merce in Miami, also at MOCA, leading to a number of further collaborations both within Miami and abroad. Arsham’s work history and philosophy are as precise as his aesthetic.   

CB - You studied Fine Art at Cooper Union before moving to Miami (now living in New York as well). What brought you to Miami in the first place?

DA - I was born in Cleveland, grew up in Miami and later went to high school in Miami; after this, I left to go back to New York. While I was away, three artist friends of mine, Bhakti Baxter, Martin Oppel and Tao Rey, rented a house in the Edgewater section. It was a typical Miami bungalow-style house built in 1930, so I moved back and we were living upstairs and gutted the first floor to use as a gallery space. Shortly after that, I began working with them in collaboration on that project which became known as The House.

CB - The House has played a significant role in the emerging Miami art scene. Tell us a bit more about the project and how it developed into an exhibition space.

DA - The space was rented in 1999 and opened to the public in 2000. At that time, there was not a huge number of galleries showing young contemporary artists from Miami and particularly there were very few artist-run spaces; really, the only other one at that time was Locust Projects which started a few years before in 1998. So it was an opportunity to exhibit our work and the work of our peers in an environment that wasn’t explicitly commercial. The program evolved organically. The first show was a number of friends of ours and overall there was no strict timeline as to how often exhibitions had to occur or how long they were or what type of work was shown. The space itself had a big impact on how people viewed the work; it was in a home in a deserted environment …it was polished to a degree, but it wasn’t a white cube.

Daniel Arsham. Corner Knot, 2008: EPS, plaster, paint, joint compound: 18” x 64” x 20”. 1/1

CB - Your work is in many ways pristine. What did this environment mean for the development of and influence on your work?

DA - A number of the pieces I did at The House didn’t require a pristine space; they sort of created their own universe. We had an exhibition in 2002, which was when things just started to develop in the surrounding area. One of my works was a sculpture of a model of a building that uses the word “WANT” as a floor plan, which got repeated. This repeated “WANT” over and over again in a way ironically preempted the mass building boom that happened in Miami shortly after. In 2003, The House was purchased by a developer who also purchased the house Noami Fisher and Hernan Bas where living in next door. Today there is a giant empty condo on the property.

CB - You were cofounder of another artist-run space called Placemaker in the Design District. How did this come about and develop?

DA - Some of us frequently showing at The House felt we had exhausted that space, so Martin Oppel and I branched out to open a more traditional gallery space. The House and Placemaker overlapped each other by a few years, and Placemaker was an opportunity to show work in a formal space that became a way to fund projects happening at The House. Basically up until that point, exhibitions at The House were funded by our credit cards and the gifts of generous collectors in town, which paid for the production of work, the printing of flyers, beer… for the events. Placemaker’s model  was to operate with a push and pulling to the artists and a push and pulling back to the gallery, using the proceeds to fund projects at The House that had no commercial viability, such as performance and much larger group shows including tons of people. That model worked and could have continued to work if not for the fact that The House was demolished.

CB - You mentioned your work has changed since then. Can you tell us a bit about how your ideas developed?

DA - In general, architecture and its overarching themes have woven into my practice. I think back on doing multiple renovations at The House and constructing all of the drywall at Placemaker, which was a 5000 square foot space needing masses and masses of drywall - all of that was done by us. It resonates with me, and I think the experiences of working with those materials have really become part of my work - using architecture as a larger overarching topic. Witnessing the explosion and rapid transformation of that neighborhood, from having plenty of open space to having multiple construction sites, built itself into my sculptural works and drawings. Quite specifically, my drawings from that period show a contrast of architectural elements existing in a pristine natural scenario.

CB - So, would you say your work deals with ideas of Utopia?

DA - I guess I would say first the drawings and then the sculptures rest in this world between construction and demolition. During that period when there were cranes everywhere, you could have a building being demolished next to a building under construction. There is a moment when the building being constructed is half way up and the building being demolished is half way down and they meet in the middle. They are in this bizarre place where you really can’t distinguish between them. This moment had a big impact on the work I create.

CB - You were selected to collaborate with choreographer Merce Cunningham. How did this collaboration first develop?

DA - Bonnie Clearwater recommended my work and the work of a number of Miami artists to Merce. He selected me to work with. The way that he works is all chance-based. His life partner was John Cage, so the idea of chance has very much broadened the way he thinks about dance. He separates everything into categories: the dance, the choreography, the set and the music. All of these elements are created independently of each other without any of the collaborators knowing what the other is going to do. I got a call from the producer telling me the date of the event and that the only limitation was not to inhibit the dancers.

Daniel Arsham. Décor for Merce Cunningham Dance Company's Paris performances. Theater Wall Erosions, 2009. EPS Foam, black paint /28’x 8’x 4”, 1/1

CB - How did you feel transforming your artwork to function as a stage set?

DA - I have always been interested in the ideas around the stage, as it presents a unique opportunity to view sculpture, as you have a fixed viewpoint. In a gallery, people walk around your sculpture; whereas, from a fixed point there is so much illusion possible.  In the year and a half I had to prepare for the project, I went to New York to see some of Merce’s performances, and what struck me was a stage technique called crossover where the dancer exits one side of the stage through the wings, walks behind the curtain and comes back out at the other side. It is a bizarre illusion and the audience doesn’t question how they got to the other side. I decided to work with the basic concept that the dancers move horizontally across the floor.  As a response, the set I designed was a frozen moment where the Deco-style theater appears to be vertically crossing through the space.

CB - What other projects have you done with Merce Cunningham?

DA - We worked on a project a few weeks ago in Paris in a series of smaller theaters, the same way Robert Rauschenberg worked in the 1960s, doing everything from lighting to sweeping the stage floor, and working with whatever is at the theater site. The last piece I constructed was a wall at the back of the stage that looked the same as the back wall of the theater itself; so during the performance, I was cutting holes through the wall exposing a giant white surface behind. For me it was the illusion of working with the architecture of the theater as the set, altering it directly the same way Rauschenberg may have done.

CB - What happens to the sets when they are done?

DA - With Merce, the sets become part of his company’s repertoire. The most recent project was events, so they were temporary moments. The new project set is designed so there is interaction and a performative ratio, which happens during the performance so there is a new set created each time.

CB - You are one of a handful of Miami artists selected by Gallery Emmanuel Perrotin. What has that relationship done for your work?

DA - A group of artists that were showing in Miami were selected to be in an exhibition called “Miami Nights” in the Paris gallery in 2004. After that some of us were invited to further exhibitions and he began to represent us. For me it’s been great to see my work in a new space. Gallery Perrotin offers these immense spaces which are perfect to exhibit just about anything.

CB - Any exciting upcoming projects?

DA - I’m working on a new project for stage called “Replica” with the choreographer Jonah Bokaer, which will be performed in Valencia, Spain next month; in an exhibition curated by Bob Wilson, in front of a 60-story building designed by Gordon Bunshaft in downtown Manhattan in July; and at the Carré d’Art de Nîmes in France in the fall.

Claire Breukel: Curator and art critic. She is the Coordinator for PUMAvision and the Curator of puma.creative.

All images Courtesy of Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin