Daniel Arsham: Memory Architecture
Perrotin Seoul is pleased to present Memory Architecture, a solo exhibition by American artist Daniel Arsham (b.1980). This exhibition follows his first presentation in Korea at Perrotin Seoul in 2017 and his large-scale solo exhibition at the Lotte Museum in 2024, and marks his second exhibition with Perrotin Seoul.
Memory Architecture centers on Arsham's distinctive concept of Fictional Archaeology, which symbolizes the core of his artistic universe. The exhibition explores the artist's interpretation of time and material, presenting works in which forms reminiscent of classical sculpture coexist with artifacts of contemporary civilization. These works evoke the appearance of relics excavated by future archaeologists, visualizing stratified layers of time that exist between the past and the future.
Featuring paintings, drawings, and sculptures, the exhibition showcases Arsham's unique sculptural language that traverses the boundaries of reality and imagination, history and contem- poraneity. Through this presentation, viewers are invited to encounter the possibilities of a visual archaeology that seeks to interpret and reconstruct the world anew.
Amalgamated Venus of Arles (2023) is the result of a multi-year residency at the Louvre in Paris where he had unlimited access to the museum's collection of plaster casts. The casts are 1:1 copies of famous sculptures from antiquity that the museum used for teaching purposes as well as symbols of national might that could be deployed to colonial outposts. The original in this case was a Greek sculpture from the 1stCentury BC depicting Aphrodite of Thespiae, unearthed in the French city of Arles in the 17th century. Arsham was able to make a full-scale replica from the Louvre's plaster cast of this figure, introducing a blend of materials that would have been impossible to achieve in antiquity and which even tests the boundaries of today's technical capabilities.
Like a three-dimensional collage, the artist rendered the sculpture in three distinct, contrasting materials-high sheen stainless steel, patinated bronze, and a warm, polished bronze-that simultaneously conjures relics pulled from the Mediterranean and the flash of modernity. Meticulously and near-invisibly joined, the three materials cohere visually when viewed from the front, but become complicated as viewers circle the work. The same effect happens in the exquisite Amalgamized Crouching Venus (2022) where two clashing materials, rich turquoise-patinaed bronze and cold, shiny stainless steel come together to fascinating effect.
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Perrotin Seoul is pleased to present Memory Architecture, a solo exhibition by American artist Daniel Arsham (b.1980). This exhibition follows his first presentation in Korea at Perrotin Seoul in 2017 and his large-scale solo exhibition at the Lotte Museum in 2024, and marks his second exhibition with Perrotin Seoul.
Memory Architecture centers on Arsham's distinctive concept of Fictional Archaeology, which symbolizes the core of his artistic universe. The exhibition explores the artist's interpretation of time and material, presenting works in which forms reminiscent of classical sculpture coexist with artifacts of contemporary civilization. These works evoke the appearance of relics excavated by future archaeologists, visualizing stratified layers of time that exist between the past and the future.
Featuring paintings, drawings, and sculptures, the exhibition showcases Arsham's unique sculptural language that traverses the boundaries of reality and imagination, history and contem- poraneity. Through this presentation, viewers are invited to encounter the possibilities of a visual archaeology that seeks to interpret and reconstruct the world anew.
Amalgamated Venus of Arles (2023) is the result of a multi-year residency at the Louvre in Paris where he had unlimited access to the museum's collection of plaster casts. The casts are 1:1 copies of famous sculptures from antiquity that the museum used for teaching purposes as well as symbols of national might that could be deployed to colonial outposts. The original in this case was a Greek sculpture from the 1stCentury BC depicting Aphrodite of Thespiae, unearthed in the French city of Arles in the 17th century. Arsham was able to make a full-scale replica from the Louvre's plaster cast of this figure, introducing a blend of materials that would have been impossible to achieve in antiquity and which even tests the boundaries of today's technical capabilities.
Like a three-dimensional collage, the artist rendered the sculpture in three distinct, contrasting materials-high sheen stainless steel, patinated bronze, and a warm, polished bronze-that simultaneously conjures relics pulled from the Mediterranean and the flash of modernity. Meticulously and near-invisibly joined, the three materials cohere visually when viewed from the front, but become complicated as viewers circle the work. The same effect happens in the exquisite Amalgamized Crouching Venus (2022) where two clashing materials, rich turquoise-patinaed bronze and cold, shiny stainless steel come together to fascinating effect.
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