Daniel Arsham
dal 10/9/2015 al 9/10/2015
Segnalato da
10/9/2015
Daniel Arsham
Galerie Perrotin, Hong Kong
Fictional Archeology. For the exhibition the artist presents five eroded sculptures of contemporary human figures and body parts and two installations displaying casts of modern artifacts like future archeological finds.
Galerie Perrotin, Hong Kong is pleased to present the tenth exhibition
dedicated to American artist Daniel Arsham (b. 1980), which features
five eroded sculptures of contemporary human figures and body parts
and two installations displaying casts of modern artifacts like future
archeological finds.
Following Daniel Arsham’s two previous solo shows at Galerie
Perrotin, Paris and Hong Kong – “The Future is Always Now”
and “#FUTUREARCHIVE” in 2014 and 2013, respectively – this new
exhibition furthers the artist’s current exploration of geological materials
that he began using four years ago to give a concrete body to his
concept of “Fictional Archeology”. In fact, his travels to Easter Island
in 2011, where he spent some time observing archeologists at work
in a dig site, provided the creative kernel for this ongoing series. While
the archeologists there were pulling past artifacts out of the ground,
Arsham came to understand that archeology was also, in a way, a
work of fiction. Archeologists need to invent - at least in part - a story
to reconstruct a plausible truth for their discoveries. Yet who knows
for certain what really happened?
Whatever may have been, storytelling or the account of historical anecdotes,
whether true or false, is not what ultimately inspired Daniel Arsham
per se. Rather, the artist is interested in infusing his own work with the
fictional dimension of archeology. He would like us to imagine that we
could travel to the future and look back at his cast relics of the present from
a dislocated, curious point of view. For his sculptures of contemporary
human figures and modern artifacts to convey this mysterious archeological
aura, they must appear as if they really had been buried in the
ground for a number of years before being excavated, which the use
of geological materials – here mainly selenite, volcanic ash, chalk, and
sand – allowed the artist to tangibly and successfully achieve without
employing the artificial means of a trompe l’oeil painterly effect. Indeed,
the earthen materials appear within his molds the exact same way that
they would in nature, which strengthens their believable authenticity.
After all, how does the saying go: from dust you were made, and to
dust you will return?
Archetypal postures of classical sculpture, as well as images and
plaster casts of Pompeian victims, who were solidified in ash after the
eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD, inspired the ensemble of five
human figures and body parts that Daniel Arsham created in selenite
and volcanic ash (all 2015). Among them, “The Dying Gaul Revisited”
is a reactualization of “Galata morente”, the Roman marble copy of a
lost Hellenistic statue (circa 230 BC), which depicts with great realism
the bare and prostrate body of a wounded Gaulish warrior down on his
shield. Forever crystallized in a position halfway between falling down
and rising up, Daniel Arsham’s version is the latter-day interpretation of
“The Dying Gaul” - cast wearing contemporary clothing. Crucial sections
of his body are not only eroded but actually missing, specifically
the knee and the forearm, on which the figure nonetheless appears
to be leaning. This puts the overall composition under the stress of a
palpable tension in terms of balance. In fact, Daniel Arsham has always
been fascinated with the diagrams one can find below reassembled
sculptures in museums, which show the portions of the figures that
were found and also those that were reconstructed by conservators.
To add to the mystery of his fictional archeology, he intentionally leaves
these kinds of breaks within his final casts.
Next to this sculptural ensemble, Daniel Arsham covers an entire wall
with black chalkboard paint. In front of it, casts made out of chalk
representing body parts, such as hands and faces, as well as various
modern artifacts ranging from cameras to telephones and, as a whole,
related to communication, were left on a pedestal at the viewer’s disposal.
Visitors are thus invited to grab these objects in order to write
or draw to their liking on the wall. In the process of mark-making, the
casts in chalk will progressively erode away throughout the length of the
show, which further epitomizes Daniel Arsham’s idea that archeological
fiction can only skim through the truth; in this case, the acts of writing
and drawing even destroy the earthen evidence or the artist’s future
relics of the present. Displayed on its own in the following room is a
recent installation consisting of similar casts of modern artifacts that
the artist made out of sand in collaboration with the students of the
School of Arts, Singapore (SOTA), where it was first exhibited in 2013.
Among its iconic or recognizable trivia, the gritty ensemble includes for
instance cassette tapes, joysticks, keyboards, and calculators, which
are laid out all over a large white table, almost as if an archeologist
had just unearthed them.
Image: Daniel Arsham, “Selenite Cracked Face”, 2015
Press Contact:
Thomas Chabaud, thomaschabaud@perrotin.com
Opening: 11 September 2015
Galerie Perrotin
50 Connaught Road, 17th Floor, Hong Kong
Tue - Sat 11am to 7pm