Contemporary artist Daniel Arsham has his first major US show “Wherever You Go There You Are” at the recently opened Orange County Museum of Art. I recognized Daniel’s name from some of the many collaborations he’s done, which include Pharrell Williams, Adidas, Dior, and Tiffany & Co.
From OCMA:
“Daniel Arsham’s solo exhibition Wherever You Go, There You Are—his first major US museum show—explores the artist’s concept of fictional archaeology. Arsham (b. 1980, Cleveland, OH) works across sculpture, architecture, drawing, and photography to investigate ideas of history, symbology, and the material nature of time.
Traditionally, archaeology has been employed as a methodology to sort through and process the past, but Arsham’s multilayered practice asks the question: What if we could dig through the future? Interested in the notion of time travel, the artist creates works that operate as future relics of the present—eroded casts of everyday objects and human figures built from geological materials like sand, pyrite, and volcanic ash. A camera, telephone, and hourglass, all conductors of information, merge with a replica of the 1981 DeLorean built by “Doc” Emmett Brown in the classic 1980s film Back to the Future to operate as remnants of the present seen through the eyes of future researchers. Together, the constellation of works in Wherever You Go, There You Are tells the stories of our time, reminding us of the innate ways we create, craft, and build objects to assert who we are as human beings.”
Some of my favorite pieces from the exhibition are the Pokemon sculptures that have crystal geodes sticking out of them.
Many of his collaboration pieces are featured in a separate gallery, located in the upstairs mezzanine.
The show runs through June 4th, 2023, so if you’re in the OC, it’s definitely worth a visit (and admission is free!)
cover photo by Yubo Dong, ofstudio (via)