Cranbrook Art Museum to Open a New Daniel Arsham Exhibition on March 1

Co-founder of Snarkitecture Also Installing “The Beach Detroit”

Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, February 20, 2019—On March 1, Cranbrook Art Museum will open the new exhibition Daniel Arsham, The Source: A Catalog of Late-20th-Century American Relics, a fictional archaeology of the future through the creation of iconic objects and products of late-twentieth-century American life. The exhibition will open at Cranbrook Art Museum on Friday, March 1, and run through June 23, 2019.

Arsham is a New York-based artist who works across the fields of art, architecture, film, and performance. He is also co-founder of Snarkitecture, a collaborative practice known for using everyday materials in unexpected ways to create captivating public installations. Their well-known participatory project, The Beach Detroit, will open to the public in the Campus Martius area of downtown Detroit on March 1, the same day the exhibition opens at Cranbrook Art Museum. The Beach Detroit consists of an ocean of more than one million recyclable, antimicrobial plastic balls, that visitors are encouraged to explore and “swim” in.

Daniel Arsham will deliver a public lecture at Cranbrook Art Museum on Friday, March 1 at 6pm. A reception will follow until 8pm.

Devoid of their natural coloration and in a seemingly petrified state, the objects in the exhibition at Cranbrook Art Museum are newly produced works that are exhibited as relics from the not-too-distant past—the unearthed remains, perhaps, of some unknown cataclysmic event.

The works are eroded casts that are expertly fashioned from materials such as sand, selenite crystal, or volcanic ash. The choice of objects for this presentation—from the worlds of sports and music—resonate with the artist’s early life, “all of these things influenced me, particularly as a child, and many of my peers,” Arsham said.

For the first time, such objects will be displayed as archaeological artifacts inside the gallery, heightening the illusion of veracity and sense of authenticity. Cranbrook Art Museum will also display his “Falling Clock,” which is inspired by the idea of an object’s gravitational force bending space and time.

Daniel Arsham is a New York-based artist who works across the fields of art, architecture, film, and performance. His work has been presented at High Museum of Art, Atlanta; MoMA PS1, New York; and The New Museum, New York, among others; and is in the collections of the Pérez Art Museum, Miami; the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; and the Centre Pompidou, Paris. In 2008, along with Alex Mustonen, Arsham co-founded Snarkitecture.

March 1 Events 

Opening of Daniel Arsham, The Source: A Catalog of Late-20th-Century American Relics 
Cranbrook Art Museum
39221 Woodward Ave.
Bloomfield Hills, MI 48304
Artist Talk: 6pm

The Beach Detroit
March 1 – April 14
1001 Woodward Ave.
Detroit, MI 48226
Wednesday – Friday: 12pm – 8pm
Saturday: 10am – 8pm
Sunday: 12pm – 6pm
Visit thebeachdetroit.com for more information

Daniel Arsham, The Source: A Catalog of Late-20th-Century American Relics is organized by Cranbrook Art Museum with the generous support of Library Street Collective.

The Beach Detroit is produced by Library Street Collective with the assistance of Cranbrook Art Museum and is supported by Bedrock and Quicken Loans Community Fund.