Daniel Arsham Launches Objects IV Life
Wed 22 Jun
By Sam Trotman
@samutaro
Over the past decade, multidisciplinary artist Daniel Arsham has explored his artistic practice through a variety of forms, working across disciplines without distinguishing among them.
Unafraid to limit his creativity, Arsham’s creative output has spanned from designing costumes and sets for legendary American dancer and choreographer Merce Cunningham, to collaborating with Pokemon for a series of fossilized characters (three times), custom-building Porsche Safari’s with Stone Island, designing a race helmet for Lewis Hamilton to wear at the Monaco Grand Prix, taken care of the artistic direction of album covers for Gunna, and become creative director for the Cleveland Cavaliers.
“I’ve always done things that cross disciplines, and engage with people in places that are not necessarily art venues,” Arsham told Hypebeast last year. “Not only does it engage some ideas that you may otherwise not have found, it also engages new audiences.” Besides, he adds, “it’s so boring to be talking to the same group over and over again. It’s boring for them, and it’s boring for me, too.”
While many are sceptical and don’t accept the commercial aspect of his work, it has been a matter of importance to Arsham, who increasingly believes in finding ways to present his work to a wider sphere than the insular bubble of the traditional art market. Fashion is another medium that Arsham has leant on to give his work even wider visibility. In recent years he’s conceived numerous high-profile collaborations with fashion brands including sneakers with Adidas, a Dior capsule collection on the runway, studio uniforms with KITH and A-Cold-Wall and Rimowa luggage.
This week Arsham will strike out and launch his own ready-to-wear brand together with Tomorrow, entitled @objectsivlife. The new project will undoubtedly be a successful pivot for the 41-year-old artist, who has already established a unique position between the worlds of fashion and art. Staying true to his artistic vision, the line of functional apparel, accessories and footwear are conceived with the idea of how objects move through time. And what better canvas to communicate this concept than denim.
Unlike most fabrics, denim is one that only gets better with age. Fade patterns and distressing, the kind of “flaws” typically shied away from, can actually enhance its desirability, especially for die-hard denim enthusiasts who spend months breaking-in their jeans in from raw. For these fanatics, this natural ageing process on a pair of jeans presents an index of the wearer's body and lifestyle, how often they wear the jeans and how hard they wore them.
But Arsham’s new denim proposition is anything but your typical pleated trucker jackets and chore coats. Instead these workwear archetypes are repurposed as contemporary uniforms with updated functionality for the modern wardrobe. “With a collectors mindset, Objects IV Life comprises foundation pieces intending to build a wardrobe of uniforms for a creative way of life,” Arsham explained in a recent IG post announcing the collection.
The first chapter, which will be released at KITH during Paris Fashion Week and later sold at Maxfield LA, Machine-A, Selfridges and other select retailers, will include a relaxed fit jeans readapted as a carpenter pant, a denim jacket featuring new proportion pockets and a workwear four-pocket jacket reimagined in a new slimmer body with square-shape sleeves. Arsham’s inclination for industrial-influenced design yields a selection of sturdy patch pockets that can be accessed at multiple points. Visual interest comes in the form of hand stamped Objects IV Life branding, along with vintage inspired hardware, and hang tags that clip onto the canvas tote bags.
For those who know with Arsham’s work, Objects IV Life will look familiar. It’s as if the artist’s soft sculptures, eroded textures and monochrome paintings, were reimagined and reassembled into unisex clothing. In fact, that’s not far from the case: Much of Arsham’s fabric is hand-dyed and hand-distressed to give them an aged appearance - much like the techniques he’s used in his art. The soft focus colour palette including pale pink, pop blue, anthracite grey and patina green evoke the look of pyrite, selenite, volcanic ash, glass, crystal and bronze, materials typically used in his sculptures.
Designed between New York City and London, the collection is manufactured in Portugal and Los Angeles with custom hardware coming from Italy. These clasps and buttons are designed in the same vision of Arsham’s ‘future relics’ with metals which develop their own patina and become partially eroded over time. “Over the past 2 years as I have been developing this first chapter I have started to understand this Clothing in the same way I think about sculpture,'' Arsham explains. “It is much like alchemy. Many of the materials are deadstock and all the hardware is made from recycled metal that is made to patina.”
Arsham’s foray into fashion arrives at a time when art and fashion are crossing over more than ever before. Art has been the cultural adhesive for many successful fashion collaborations and limited product drops but in recent years artists like Sterling Ruby, Matt McCormick and Takashi Murakami are launching their own ready-to-wear lines. Until now, these artists' work have, for the most part, been collected by institutions, but this new language offers collectors and fans alike to invest in a piece of wearable canvas that is the equivalent of an artwork.