It’s been over a decade since Daniel Arsham, a giant in the contemporary art world, opened a show in his hometown of Miami. That changed this Miami Art Week.
Amid the busy week of big museum exhibitions, flashy influencer parties, bustling art fairs and relentless traffic, Arsham’s artwork inaugurated the newly opened Ross+Kramer Gallery location in Miami Beach’s Sunset Harbour area. Ross+Kramer Gallery, which showcases emerging and established artists, has two existing locations in Manhattan and East Hampton.
Arsham was born in Cleveland, Ohio, and grew up in Miami. He moved to New York City in the ‘90s and is based there today. He’s known for bridging architecture, art and performance and has worked on a number of high profile collaborations, including with Pharrell Williams, Dior and Tiffany and Co. His artwork, mostly monochromatic and dotted with jutting crystals, have been featured in top museums, galleries and fairs around the world.
Todd Kramer, gallery co-founder, said Arsham was the perfect fit to open the new location.
“We wanted our Miami debut to make an unforgettable statement, and few artists possess the global reach and multifaceted impact like Arsham, from his artistic practices to his diverse commercial partnerships,” Kramer said in a statement. “It’s also undeniably special to open with someone who has deep ties to the city. Having grown up in Miami, Daniel’s return for this momentous exhibition underscores the cultural significance this city deserves.”
The Miami Beach gallery will primarily focus on contemporary artists and solo shows in its first year, said associate director Cielle Hart. Many of the gallery’s clients move between New York, Miami and Los Angeles, which made Miami Beach “a good place to be,” said said Dana Ross Collum, the gallery director.
The building the gallery is located in is brand new too, with a pristine white interior and wide windows. Construction on the building didn’t wrap up until the previous week, Ross Collum said. Preparing for the exhibition came down “literally down to the last minute.”
The crunch time paid off. The opening night event on Dec. 7 proved to be an especially popular Art Week destination among young art lovers.
“We wanted to be opening during Art Week in Miami,” Ross Collum said. “This was the ideal plan, having an audience from all over the world, especially with an artist like Daniel Arsham, who has such a huge following.” A line of fans in trendy outfits snaked around the gallery as they patiently waited to take a photo with Arsham in front of one of his works, “Veiled Playboy Magazine.” The hanging sculpture, made of hydrostone and fiberglass, depicts a copy of Playboy draped elegantly in a pure white veil. It’s as if the raunchy magazine was carved from marble with the same deference a Renaissance artist would use to capture a Roman god.
The combination of modern day pop culture with archaeology is a running theme in the exhibition, called “Miami 3023.” For Arsham, time itself is “a medium in the work.” The artworks in the show are meant to confuse the viewer. Is the sculpted Playboy magazine a fossil from the past or a recreation made in the future?
“So much of how we live our experience of every day of our lives is based around how we catalog time,” he said. “Are we late? Are we early? Where are we going? How much time do we have to do this thing? How long does it take to get to certain places? So I feel like those works sort of play with our understanding of time by confusing our relationship with it.”
A New York Yankees hat and laptop are draped in stone veils. A movie poster of the classic film “Vertigo” is pocked with clusters of crystals. Anime and cartoon references reappear throughout the show, especially in Arsham’s “unfinished” graphite and charcoal drawings of Goku, Boba Fett and Pokemon characters split with studies of classical sculptures.
The most emblematic piece in the show, Arsham said, is sculpture of an eroded DeLorean car. The bronze sculpture is a bluish green, like the Statue of Liberty. Golden crystals poke through the car seats, doors and hood. The bronze references the same materials used in grand outdoor statues found in Rome, Paris or Washington D.C.
“It’s using all of these codes that people recognize and confusing them a little bit with it,” he said.
Time has also had an impact on Miami’s arts community, which has blossomed in its own right in the 21 years since Art Basel Miami Beach debuted. Lately, many Miami-born and -based artists have noticed a steep increase in their work.
While Art Basel is still the highlight of the year, Arsham said, it’s good to see the increase of galleries, museums and local artists able to make a living here.
“When I lived here, there was always the desire to try to spread that energy out a little bit more over the year,” he said. “And I think that’s largely been successful.”
MIAMI 3023 BY DANIEL ARSHAM
Where: Ross+Kramer Gallery, 1910 Alton Rd, Miami Beach
When: On view until Jan. 27. Hours: Tuesday to Saturday, 10a.m. – 6 p.m.
Info: Free to view. https://www.rkgallery.com/
This story was produced with financial support from The Pérez Family Foundation, in partnership with Journalism Funding Partners, as part of an independent journalism fellowship program. The Miami Herald maintains full editorial control of this work.
