The first UK museum display of work by Daniel Arsham has been revealed at Yorkshire Sculpture Park and it was definitely worth the wait.
As part of Daniel Arsham: Relics in the Landscape, six bronze sculptures by the highly acclaimed North American artist can now be found in the 18th-century Formal Garden at YSP for the foreseeable.
Arsham says: “I first visited Yorkshire Sculpture Park a couple of years ago and was struck by the way sculptures would connect with the landscape there: the rolling hills, the changing seasons and the interaction of the work with the natural light, lakes and surroundings. I immediately started thinking about a project I could embark on in the landscape that would allow my work to take advantage of the unique context presented there. The works I’m showing vary in scale, some are presented in an open garden and others are concealed or hidden within woodland, for viewers to discover.”
Artefacts of our time
Arsham’s partially decayed works, or ‘future relics’ as he describes them, appear as archaeological remnants of our time and draw on his childhood experience of surviving Hurricane Andrew, which destroyed his family home and everything around it.
Incorporating real crystals that have been cast in bronze into his work, Arsham also explores the idea of regeneration, alchemical change (the transformation of one substance into another), growth, and progression.
His sculptures draw both from antiquity and more recent history and pop culture, too. For example, Bronze Eroded Astronaut (2022) is inspired by the famous image of Neil Armstrong during the Apollo 11 Moonwalk in 1969, while the three-metre tall Bronze Eroded Venus of Arles (Large) (2022) is Arsham’s retelling of the ancient marble statue of Aphrodite from the 1st century BCE.
He adds: “As history progresses, all objects become antiquated and in some way, they all become ruins or relics, disused or buried. In 1,000 years everything that we own will inevitably become one of those things. I don’t particularly see that as having an apocalyptic quality – it’s sort of just the march of time moving on.”
Catch Daniel Arsham: Relics in the Landscape at Yorkshire Sculpture Park now.
Daniel Arsham, Unearthed Bronze Eroded Melpomene, 2021. Installation at Yorkshire Sculpture Park. Courtesy Perrotin Gallery and Arsham Studio. Photo © Jonty Wilde, courtesy YSP.
Daniel Arsham, Bronze Extraterrestrial Bicycle, 2022. Installation view at Yorkshire Sculpture Park. Courtesy Perrotin Gallery and Arsham Studio. Photo by Anthony Devlin/Getty Images for Daniel Arsham.
Daniel Arsham, Bronze Eroded Astronaut, 2022. Installation view at Yorkshire Sculpture Park. Courtesy Perrotin Gallery and Arsham Studio. Photo by Anthony Devlin/Getty Images for Daniel Arsham.