Daniel Arsham USA, b. 1980

Born in 1980 in Cleveland, Ohio, Arsham was raised in Miami, where he attended the Design and Architecture High School. He was awarded a full scholarship to The Cooper Union in New York, where he received the Gelman Trust Fellowship Award in 2003. Upon graduation, Arsham toured worldwide with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company as the company’s stage designer for over four years—an experience that informed his ongoing synergistic practice. In 2007, he founded the pioneering architecture firm Snarkitecture with partner Alex Mustonen. Collaboration continues to be a key cornerstone of his practice—realizing high-profile projects with music producer Pharrell Williams and designer Hedi Slimane, as well as Dior, Porsche, and Tiffany & Co. Arsham has participated in numerous major international solo exhibitions, including those at the Contemporary Art Center, Cincinnati, OH; High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA; the HOW Art Museum, Shanghai, and the Moco Museum, Amsterdam. His works are included in the permanent collections of the Centre Pompidou, Paris; Pérez Art Museum, Miami, FL, and Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN. He lives and works in New York, NY.

Known for turning the every-day life themes into something spectacular and surreal and guided by architectural concepts, the multi-artist Daniel Arsham transits between painting, sculpture, installation, set design and dance performances. “Out of all the products that humans make, architecture is the biggest and most lasting and relevant form of cultural expression – it’s the only thing that’s going to last”, he declares. In 2007, he developed the set design for the spectacle eyeSpace, the first of four that he would make for the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, the legendary company that once featured collaborations with important names in art such as Robert Rauschenberg, Frank Stella and Bruce Nauman. Today he‘s partner and founder of Snarkitecture, a collaborative design studio that operates between the territories of art and architecture.

Selected Exhibitions 

2023 – Wherever You Go, There You Are, Orange County Museum of Art (OCMA), CA
2019 – Connecting Time, MOCO Museum, Amsterdam
2016 – The Future Was Then (solo exhibition)
2015 – Fictional Archaeology (solo exhibition)
2012 – Reach Ruin, Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia

Collections

– Centre Pompidou, Paris
– Walker Art Center, Minneapolis
– Museum of Contemporary Art, Miami
– Louis Vuitton Collection, Paris
– The Four Seasons Miami Collection, Miami
– Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM)
– Dior Collection, Paris
– Musée Guimet, Paris
– National Gallery of Victoria, Australia
– Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA), Miami