A Photographic Journey
Daniel Arsham
Architecture, sculpture, photography – Daniel Arsham moves with elegance between artistic genres, between space and time. Photography has been part of the US American artist’s life ever since high school, though he studied architecture. For his “future relics from the present sculptures”, Arsham transforms mundane objects into timeless works of art, making them appear like artefacts from a future past. Arsham’s work has received many awards, has been exhibited extensively, and is represented in important art collections all over the world.
Many of the things that I’ve made casts of are objects that were important to me personally. But they’re also things that I knew society at large would understand – even though they didn’t know it was a Leica, they knew it was a camera. And this locates the piece in time.
Daniel Arsham
A Leica was among the first cameras Daniel Arsham owned. The icon of photography from the 20th century also became an object of art for him – made out of poured materials such as quartz, pyrite or volcanic ash, the cameras acquire traces of erosion and become fictitious, archaeological artefacts. The past and the future have dissolved, functionality has been suspended, and objects immortalised. Arsham has used a Leica M3 throughout his whole career, as a work of art as well as a tool to document his life. His group of Leica pieces is comprised of 25 sculptures, including a Leica III, a Leica CL and different M models.
