Daniel Arsham. Venice 3024

About

Transporting viewers from the past and present into the future, Daniel Arsham transforms artifacts and images that hold significant influence to comment on and memorialize the permanence of collective cultural memory. In this exhibition, the artist introduces new techniques into his Fractured Idols series, alongside a survey of artwork in his signature Fictional Archaeology series.

Central to the exhibition, Arsham debuts two new styles of work from his Fractured Idols series. Situated in the apse of the Chiesa di Santa Caterina, a large-scale bronze and stainless steel sculpture oversees the larger installation. In this body of work, the artist joins seemingly recognizable personas from both anime, cartoons and Antiquity, transforming the images through artificial intelligence and recreating and juxtaposing these fictionalized portraits. The artist also debuts a collaboration with Italian design company, Bisazza, introducing a new suite of mosiac works in glass.

Throughout the cathedral, Arsham presents a suite of sculptures inspired by artworks from Antiquity. In collaboration with the historic Réunion des Musées Nationaux – Grand Palais (RMN), a 200-yearold French molding atelier, Arsham was able to use molds and scans of some of the most iconic works from the collections of the Musée du Louvre in Paris, Acropolis Museum in Athens, the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, among others. Arsham recreates these historic works in his signature geological materials and bronze. Interested in the way that objects move through time, the works selected by Arsham are so iconic that they have eclipsed their status as mere art object, and instead have embedded themselves into our collective memory and identity.

Also on view are a selection of works from recent collaborations, an integral aspect of Arsham's practice. Iconic figures from the Star Wars franchise like figures like Stormtrooper™ and C-3PO™ are crafted from the artist's signature minerals such as rose quartz, blue calcite and hydrostone. In addition, Arsham presents the latest in his series of functional automobiles and motor sports vehicles, the "Eroded Blue Calcite Superveloce 800," which was introduced recently at Art Basel Miami Beach 2023. An MV Augusta Superveloce 800 becomes his canvas. Founded in the 1940s by Count Domenico Agusta, MV Augusta's retro design of the superveloce was made popular in the 1970s, returning to fashion in recent years as the brand has celebrated its continued success in motor competitions worldwide. Arsham further complicates the storied brand's history, adding custom erosions and crystallization, as if the motorbike has been discovered 1,000 years in the future. Fully functional, the sculpture can be driven outside as a normal motorbike.

About the artist
Daniel Arsham’s uchronic aesthetics revolves around his concept of fictional archaeology. Working in sculpture, architecture, drawing and film, he creates and crystallizes ambiguous in-between spaces or situations, and further stages what he refers to as future relics of the present. They are eroded casts of modern artifacts and contemporary human figures, which he expertly makes out of some geological material such as sand, selenite or volcanic ash for them to appear as if they had just been unearthed after being buried for ages. Always iconic, most of the objects that he turns into stone refer to the late 20th century or millennial era, when technological obsolescence unprecedentedly accelerated along with the digital dematerialization of our world. While the present, the future and the past poetically collide in his haunted yet playful visions between romanticism and pop art, Daniel Arsham also experiments with the timelessness of certain symbols and gestures across cultures.