Daniel Arsham: Materials and Process

Friday, March 6, 2020, 7 - 8pm

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Daniel Arsham, a 2003 The Cooper Union School of Art graduate, delivers a free, public lecture that uncovers the processes, materials, and techniques found in Arsham Studio.

The event is free and open to the public. General public, including the school community, should reserve a space here. Please note first come, first seated; an RSVP does not guarantee admission as we generally overbook to ensure a full house.

New York-based artist Daniel Arsham work explores the fields of fine art, architecture, performance, design, and film. Raised in Miami, Arsham attended The Cooper Union where he received the Gelman Trust Fellowship Award in 2003. Soon thereafter Arsham toured worldwide with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company as the company’s stage designer. The experience lead to an ongoing collaborative practice which continues as Arsham works with world-renowned artists, musicians, designers, and brands.

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. 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, Arsham also experiments with the timelessness of certain symbols and gestures across cultures.

In 2008, Arsham co-founded Snarkitecture with architect and fellow Cooper Union graduate Alex Mustonen AR'05. Snarkitecture is a collaborative design practice established to investigate the boundaries between the disciplines of art and architecture. Snarkitecture focuses on the reinterpretation of everyday materials, structures andprograms to new and imaginative effect. The studio's work includes installations, architectural environments and objects for a diverse range of clients such as Seletti, Calvin Klein, COS, Kith, and more.

Arsham’s work has been shown at PS1 (New York); The Museum of Contemporary Art (Miami); and The New Museum (New York) among others. Arsham is represented by Galerie Perrotin in Paris, Hong Kong, New York, Seoul, Shanghai, and Tokyo. Arsham also shows with Baro Galeria (Sao Paulo); Ron Mandos (Amsterdam); and Nanzuka Gallery (Tokyo).

Located in The Great Hall, in the Foundation Building, 7 East 7th Street, between Third and Fourth Avenues

  • Founded by inventor, industrialist and philanthropist Peter Cooper in 1859, The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art offers education in art, architecture and engineering, as well as courses in the humanities and social sciences.

  • “My feelings, my desires, my hopes, embrace humanity throughout the world,” Peter Cooper proclaimed in a speech in 1853. He looked forward to a time when, “knowledge shall cover the earth as waters cover the great deep.”

  • From its beginnings, Cooper Union was a unique institution, dedicated to founder Peter Cooper's proposition that education is the key not only to personal prosperity but to civic virtue and harmony.

  • Peter Cooper wanted his graduates to acquire the technical mastery and entrepreneurial skills, enrich their intellects and spark their creativity, and develop a sense of social justice that would translate into action.