Interview: Daniel Arsham Talks About His "the fall, the ball, and the wall" Exhibition

Based in Brooklyn, NY, Daniel Arsham produces inventive two- and three-dimensional works with a distinct sense of humor. His first solo exhibition in Los Angeles opens this month at OHWOW Gallery and will feature all new material.

We connected with Arsham to get the scoop on some of his favorite works from the show.

the fall, the ball, and the wall opens on January 20 and runs through February 16, 2012.

OHWOW Gallery, 937 North La Cienega Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA

Image Credit:
Portrait of Artist
On the set of the final performances of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company at the Park Avenue Armory
Photo courtesy of the artist

Daniel Arsham
OKAY
Inkjet print and Acrylic on Canvas
76 x 53"
2011
Courtesy of the artist and OHWOW

Oops and Okay follow ideas that I’ve had about creating text-based constructions - a building in which the floor plan spelled out a word. If you were in this building, you wouldn’t know that it spelled that. Architecture is such a serious endeavor, I think it’s one of the most lasting things that we can produce, and these words, these constructions, are the most banal playful things I could think of. The words have such an everyday function that they loose their meaning. There is a banality about them. Taking those things and elevating them to an architectural proportion is something that I’ve been playing with.

Daniel Arsham
OOPS
Inkjet print and Acrylic on Canvas
51.25 x 74.25 x 1.625"
2011
Courtesy of the artist and OHWOW

Using the process of collage, I combine images, photographs, digital renderings, and drawings into an image and then print it onto canvas and then paint over.

It’s a kind of a collage, a contemporary version of the type of work Rauschenberg was pioneering in the 1950s that used silkscreen as a collage technique. There was no way for him to digitally manipulate those images before they were printed. I’m able to collage everything together into one coherent image before printing it.

Daniel Arsham
Hiding Figure
Fiberglass, gypsum, paint and shoes
86 x 50 x 12"
2011
Courtesy of the artist and OHWOW

The Hiding Figure follows in a series of works that I’ve been doing for a number of years that allow figures to interact in a visceral way with architecture. The first work in the series was a figure that appears to be wrapped up in the wall almost like the way you would curl a sheet around yourself in bed.

Another, older work, depicts a figure that appears to be falling through the ceiling with the ceiling sort of dragging and stretching around it. All the works transform the materiality of the surface of the wall. And in the case of Hiding Figure, the wall almost begins to appear as if it’s fabric, like you could peel it up on the edge and step underneath it. The work almost disappears in the white space. I’m always trying to manipulate existing spaces and make it appear as if these works are actually physically part of the architecture, as if they are manipulating it directly.

These works are often draped on actual figures in the studio beforehand, especially the ones in fabric, so I’m looking at images and photos of someone stapled to a wall behind a sheet and determining from that the way the folds should go, the way that this piece should join to the wall, how big the figures should be, what kind of shoes they’re going to wear…all of these things.

Daniel Arsham
Big Drip
Fiberglas, joint compound, and paint
48 x 96 x 8"
2011
Courtesy of the artist and OHWOW.

I’m always trying to think of different ways to potentially manipulate the walls, or the ceiling, or the floor. I’m often looking for physical properties of manipulation, the way that things would erode or melt.

So, I’m often thinking about the natural processes and the physical quality of materials to integrate into an architectural surface. In a number of the works in this exhibition, that is the property of fabric, where it can stretch and fold. I’m integrating that sensation into the walls directly. The Big Drip is an architectural intervention that allows the wall to drip almost as if it’s melting down the wall and onto the floor.

All of these works began with a simple idea about how I can manipulate surface and the form of architecture. I’m always looking for a specific type of formal language: the dripping, stretching, pulling, or the eroding