Galerie Perrotin Paris presents: STORM, an exhibition by Daniel Arsham.

In August of 1992, Daniel Arsham was nearly killed in a hurricane in Miami. This being the 20th anniversary of that event, the experience has provided the initial inspiration for this exhibition titled STORM. Witnessing the dramatic and destructive possibilities of nature and its impact on human constructions, Arsham has created a new series of his architectural interventions that expand on his ability to make architecture perform the unexpected.

In much of the work in the show, Arsham takes the destructive energy he observed in the storm and reforms it to new and imaginative purposes, creating an uncanny context though aberrant perceptions : a clock moves on the wall creating folds that partially conceal it (“Sideways clock”) ; a sheet appears to blow over a waving figure only to be unveiled as a hollow form with no figure present when one walks around it (“Hollow Figure”).

After the hurricane, there was broken glass everywhere in Arsham’s home and all of the framed works on the walls were destroyed. A number of new self-portraits reform the broken glass back into sculptural objects. The moon features as an essential motif in this exhibition. In particular, in his paintings in gouache on mylar, where the moon is altered to contain rectilinear excavations. During the month that Arsham lived without electricity after the storm the moon appeared prominently in the sky at night and the memory of the storm is linked with the glowing of the moon at night.

Creating possibilities out of ruin, Arsham’s paintings and sculptures seem to float in time, giving a similar interpretation as in Nicolas Poussin and Hubert Robert landscapes.