A Flag for our Future

L’O: Your flag for St Barth reads ‘Arsham Studio Sailing Team - St Barth Regatta 3021’. Your work spins a lot around the question of time, the notions of present, and the future. Can you tell us about this very unique language you’ve created, playing with time and dates? 
DA: I’ve used this idea of pushing myself and my audience a thousand years into the future as a way to reframe the conversation around our experience of time. I think that time is one of the most unconsidered aspects of how we experience and interpret our lives. It governs almost everything we do: when we wake up, when we go to sleep. We are constantly searching for more of it, yet it’s not something top of our concerns, necessarily, as an element that we believe influences our experience or our happiness. Those things are often relegated to relationships or material objects. This playing with time and its uses as a medium in my work is paramount.

L’O: Your instagram account is dated 3021. Do you feel like you are ahead of now? 
DA: I think social media has been a great vehicle and tool for artists over the last decade. It’s allowed artists like myself to reach audiences that we may not otherwise find. It erases the barriers between the artist and a museum curator or a gallery, and it’s a direct connection with the audience. I think it also allows audiences, if the artist is willing, to enter aspects of their practice and their daily lives that might inform the way people interpret their work. And I think this has been an interesting aspect of social media.


L’O: You recently released an NFT ‘Eroding and Reforming Bust of Rome (One Year)’ piece that will erode, reform, and change based on the time of year. What made you want to make this artwork into an NFT?
DA: I was interested in NFTs for over a year and I really had time to sit down during lockdown in New York and think about the possibilities within them. An NFT is effectively the ability to own an object in the metaverse, a digital object, and to actually retain ownership of it. The Ethereum blockchain allows what’s called a smart contract. What else can it do? In the simplest way possible you could create an artwork that would alter itself over time. This was something that was present in the blockchain but no artist has really used it to this effect. As much of my work involves the reinterpretation and manipulation of time, the artworks that I’ve created within it are sculptures which erode and then reform over the course of years and decades. ‘Eroding and Reforming Bust of Rome’ sits within a space that has views out onto a garden. We are moving around the sculpture. And over the course of the year, the sculpture erodes and decays. The seasons change and so does the garden outside. In spring the birds are chirping and there are flowers in the garden. In summer, it’s lush and there are crickets and cicadas. In fall, the leaves change colour, and by winter the work is totally eroded and the sculpture lays collapsed on the floor while it’s snowing outside.


L’O: You are like the renaissance artists, you paint, you do sculpture, photography, jewelry, fashion, architecture, you have recently developed a full line of furniture and even a Porsche. What’s up next in the Arsham empire?
DA: My work has often involved many different aspects of creative production, including painting, sculpture, photography, film and digital art. It’s about exploration in those areas. Many of those mediums are things that I’ve played with for years before they entered my work in a public way. There are things I’m playing around with now that we might see in 3030.


L’O: Over the course of your collaborations with Dior, Tiffany & Co, Kith, Rimowa or Pokémon what have you learnt about collaborations with other brands?
DA: Brand collaborations have been an important aspect of my work and something that I have felt the art world didn’t really want me to do. One part of me wants to engage in those aspects just to go against what the prevailing winds and ideology say. But I also think that the collaborations with brands, like Uniqlo, allowed me to create objects, such as T-shirts, that are available to everyone. And collaborations with brands like Dior and Porsche allowed me to work with some of the most talented artisans, engineers and creators living today, to manifest projects that were dreams of mine.

L’O: During one of your travels to St Barth you made a series of photographs of the sky and stars at night, apparently using the light of the moon. This series can be seen at Eden Rock Hotel, as part of their permanent collection. Can you tell us some more about this work of photography?
DA: Many years ago, I was in St Barth. I was by myself and I spent a lot of time wandering around at night taking photographs of the sky. The stars in St Barth are easily seen at night. I took photos of the reflection of the water, the boats sitting in the harbour, these kinds of otherworldly landscapes that emerge in the evening, and those photographs can be seen as part of the permanent collection at the Eden Rock Hotel.


L’O: You have been coming to St Barth many times and you know well the island. What’s your favorite things about St Barth?
DA: I grew up in Florida, so the Caribbean and the feeling of the water there is very familiar to me. From my first visit to St Barth everything about the island spoke to me. It’s a rare landscape: it’s somewhat mountainous, hilly, rocky, the crystal-clear water, the beaches, the people. And the restaurants and food there is just excellent. And the light in that part of the world is just magical. I am sure I will be going back for many years.




Daniel Arsham, www.danielarsham.com @danielarsham
Daniel Arsham’s flag and artworks are exhibited and available for sale at Eden Rock - St Barths @er_stbarths
Utöpia is a sustainability project supporting the international artistic community, specializing in the production of limited edition artist flags and limited editions @utopia_flags