Daniel Arsham (Cleveland, Ohio, 1980) studied at the prestigious Cooper Union in New York, the city where he currently resides. His work explores the concept of time as a fickle and uncertain entity.
Although he was born in Cleveland, Arsham grew up in the city of Miami. During his childhood, his family suffered the consequences of devastating Hurricane Andrew and the remains that it left over the city became a source of inspiration for his work.
According to the artist, the past is subjective, because it depends on personal experiences, and this connects us to a future that is uncertain, and to the present, which is the only true and objective moment. Arsham works on this ideas with different materials to play with architecture and everyday objects, so that the viewer is not able to place them in a specific time. Thus, objects of modern life that Arsham replicates with materials as diverse as volcanic ashes, become archaeological pieces of a distant future.
Daniel Arsham's work also includes large installations such as "Lunar Garden", a giant zen garden inspired by Japanese dry gardens. These gardens, although they always have the same pattern, are redone every day in order to clean them, and this is the key to his work. The artist works on the idea of something that pretends to be eternal by always looking the same, but which in turn is necessarily ephemeral, because it is destroyed and rebuilt every day.
The work of Daniel Arsham always plays with a single color and, occasionally, with its gradients. His color blindness only allows his to see a smaller spectrum in the chromatic range, and this is why the artist's work has a very reduced palette.
In 2007 he founded Snarkitechture studio along with his friend and fellow Cooper Union member, Alex Mustonen. The main goal of their work is to explore the boundaries between design, art and architecture. In this studio, they create installations, projects and objects that challenge reality, giving rise to imaginative spaces in which the spectator can actively participate and enjoy.