You're Not Failing Long Enough To Be Successful With Artist Daniel Arsham

21:32It's like, we can all accept failure, right? It's something that you do, but it's really difficult to accept a regret for not having tried the thing. So I gladly lean into failure.

21:44Danielle:Is there a failure that sticks out in your mind? I know you've talked about how like Like your failures, I almost think of them as pivots the way you write about it because you don't really consider them failures. That you feel like they kind of bleed into other things and turn into other work. Is there one that stuck out in your mind that really hurt at the time? Well, there's a really funny one, which in 2015, I made a film. And I became close with Jane Rosenthal, who is the head of Tribeca Films and the Tribeca Film Festival. So I told her about this idea. She helped me put together some finances for it.

22:19I made a film and it premiered at Tribeca Film Festival 2015. And the film was like, it was okay, but I kind of knew when I finished it, like it's a difficult film, like something easy to watch. It's very conceptual. The storyline was a little bit all over the place. I got so obsessed with the visual quality of it that a little bit of the storyline got lost. So it was kind of a big deal, this premiere. it was like on the marquee and like they had a whole red carpet for it. I mean, I talk about this in the book, so I'm not really revealing anything. But one of my favorite film directors, Julian Schnabel, was at the film premiere.

22:56And the next day, a friend of mine told me that he was at the bar after the thing talking to the director of the festival. And he literally said, that was the fucking worst thing I've ever seen. And I kind of thought it was funny, because I also sort of knew and that he had attended the premiere and paid attention to it. But that was kind of like the nail in the coffin for me of like, okay, maybe like film is not my medium. And, you know, the other aspect of that is that nobody really remembers the failures, right? It's like, if you failed in the thing, you're probably not going to do it again.

23:31And, you know, every actor, every musician, like they all have some either terrible role that they did or concert performance that was awful or something like that. And like people don't really remember those things. So it's kind of a license to try out and fail in that way.

23:47Danielle:Are you a watch collector by any chance? Yep. And I've designed a number of watches as well. I know you have. I get the sense that you're obsessed with time. Is that accurate? It's like a medium in the work. So the works confuse people about when they were made, about when they exist, about where we are in relation to them. And that's kind of a big part of the overall work in general. I mean, even the title of your book, which is an ode to your work, Future Relic, says a lot about time, in my opinion. And I think you figured out a way to take this object that everyone recognizes it and make you feel like you're observing its entire lifespan.

24:23Danielle:And I think unlike Mariah Carey, who doesn't feel like time is real, you almost use it as a material that you work with. Has your work been more about merging time periods, making time stop or making things feel timeless? I mean, I try to use materials in a way that they tell a story. So if we think about like what artists usually use for specifically sculpture, right? There's a lot of classical materials, wood and stone, marble, bronze, like these are historical materials. I often work with things that we wouldn't expect to be used for sculpture, volcanic ash brushed crystal sand right these are things that the material tells a story about the object in addition to the way that it looks and in that way the works become very I don't know they just feel more real right because the materials are telling a story to us as well like even your graffiti name as a teenager was when that signifies to me that you understood something about time as a teenager when no one's thinking about time.

25:32That part of it is like a miraculous coincidence that, you know, I was obsessed with that as a teenager. And there's a whole chapter in the book about graffiti and interesting scenarios that I put myself in with that.

25:46Danielle:Do you think that it really was a coincidence or do you think that there was something turning in you that manifested later? It's hard to say, like, how closely was I paying attention to things like that at that time. It's the same way like when I get interviewed about the origin of an idea for a work. It's very hard for me to trace back because every work leads to the next work that leads to the next work. So it's this thing that's skipping forward and it's hard to trace back the origin of the original idea. What is something that people would be surprised that you spend your time doing or spend your time on?

26:20I am extremely good at golf, like way better than average.

26:26Danielle:Really? Yes. I played when I was a child, but I've spent the last two years like really drilling down. And for anyone who knows golf, like I'm an eight handicap, which is pretty low. Did this spike during COVID and then take off or this is post COVID? It was actually later than that. I did a big project in Wisconsin at a very famous golf course there, which was a sculptural project placing these large bronze works among the holes of the course. And in preparation for that, I decided like, you know what, I'm going to take a couple of lessons and like just get my game like slightly in order because I hadn't played in a decade.

27:04Right. And so I played a couple rounds then and then I started playing more. And then at some point I realized, like, I kind of understand this game in a very different way now. I understand it sculpturally. It's about shaping things. And I love golf because it's really a competition against yourself. You're not really playing against anyone necessarily. You're playing against yourself and the designer of the course. And the way that the ball moves, the way that you move through the course, there's a lot of artistic ideas within that.

27:33Danielle:On the flip side, is there something you think is a complete waste of time? Just being on the internet, probably. It's like, I hate social media so much. Wait, what, Daniel? You're big on social. I mean, I have to be because I think it's a great way for me to communicate. So I like it in that way. I guess I hate it as a consumer. You know, you get on Instagram or TikTok and you just look at it and then like, you know, 30 minutes go by and you're like, what the fuck am I doing? Like, what did I just look at? But as an artist, I think it really has changed a lot because it allows me to have direct relationship with people that are interested in my work globally.

28:09Two days ago, I was in Macau in China unveiling a huge new work. And, you know, there's thousands of people that show up to this that I've never met, that I've never shown my work in Macau before, that know my work, that know basically everything about my practice. And it's because of social media.

28:26Danielle:I was going to say for someone who likes to share process, you do that well on social. It's a cool place to do that. Do you always run on time? Yes, usually early. I know that you said that you love painting because it conveys a sense of endlessness. Why does that endlessness and time feel so central to your work? I mean, my paintings look like a realistic setting often, but they depict things that are otherworldly. And so it allows me to create scenarios that I might never be able to achieve in real life. I studied painting in school, and that was kind of the first real part of my practice. Like when I did that show with Emmanuel, there was, I think, 15 works in that show, and the vast majority of them were paintings.

29:12Over the decade that followed, I just became so much more interested in sculpture that I literally stopped painting for probably close to 10 years. I always made drawings and things like that, but it wasn't really until pandemic that I went back to painting. You know, everything was closed in New York. I couldn't go to the studio. And so I ordered some paint and started painting in my office here and kind of went back to that universe.

29:37Danielle:It also looked like you were working on your Japanese gardens. There was a lot of rakings. I was doing that as well. I can tell you, I think that one of the reasons I'm so interested in your work is you hold these two opposite truths at one time. And I actually think that's what my podcast or my questions try to do. I love the nuance. I love the gray area. And you both preserve and erode. And I'm so curious when you are looking at a piece, any object, how do you decide what deserves to be preserved and what you are going to erode? Yeah. So the works, imagine something like a historical piece of sculpture, right?

30:17A bust of a face. The works have these erosions on them, but the erosions are often made of a material like crystal, which is a material that we associate with growth, right? Like something crystallizing and forming. So the works function in opposing directions. They look like they're falling apart. They look crumbling, right? There are pieces broken off of them, but those areas also look like they're growing. So the work could be falling apart or it could be growing together. And that kind of like sliding of a dial of something falling apart, growing back together is a sort of trope that I've used a lot in my work over the years.

30:53Danielle:And do you just decide where the erosion comes in by like the actual image of what you're looking at or does it have a deeper meaning? So some of it is accidental because I can't entirely control what the erosion is going to look like in the process. Those works are created inside of a mold and I cannot see inside of the mold while I'm doing the work. So I have to pick the general area that I want the erosion. Yeah, it's basically a crapshoot the way that it comes out in the end. Sometimes there's too much and I have to remake it. And those are like the little failures that happen every day in the studio.

31:28Danielle:That's cool.

31:40Danielle:I have a question for you about taste. I saw this video, speaking of the internet, it's a video of a girl saying that if you feel like you don't have good taste, don't worry. You just actually haven't experienced enough things. That taste is sort of this combination of the things that your eyes have seen. So if you maybe had like a fashionable mom or father or grandfather or something, you're probably going to have better taste because you've been around it. What do you think? Do you feel like your taste has grown or have you always had this very precise idea of what you like? I mean, certainly my tastes shift.

32:16I've traveled an unbelievable amount. When I got my 2 million mile thing from Delta, I was like, please take it back. I can't believe I've been on the plane that much. It's ridiculous. But spending so much time in different cultures, I've spent a huge amount of time in Japan, which has influenced a lot of the way that I think about architecture and experience and nature and I mean, just living life generally. And so I think I agree with that. You acquire taste through, yeah, you're discerning palette. Like you've seen so many things and you kind of understand what you like, what you don't like.

32:50You clearly have more options, right? When you've seen all of these different possibilities.

32:55Danielle:How do you think that art becomes timeless? Like when I think of obviously the Mona Lisa or Starry Nights. How is that deemed something great and timeless in the art world? What do you think makes something timeless? Well, first of all, I think it's impossible to set out as an artist to make something like that. You have to invest as much as you can in the actual object. And I talk a little bit about this in the book that there's this kind of snowballing effect that happens as an artist where you have an idea and it starts rolling down the hill like in those old cartoons and gathering mass. And in the beginning, it feels so difficult to achieve anything as a creative or as an entrepreneur, right?

33:39You have all these obstacles against you. But the more that you make, it's almost like you have this gravity of mass of the things that you create. And eventually, you've made so many things. It's kind of undeniable that you are this force in the world. So it just makes those things so much easier.

33:57Danielle:See, I'm interested to hear that because when I look at your work, especially the collaborations you do, it seems to me like you're not thinking in news cycles or quick moments. I mean, I guess maybe the timeless relics speak to this, but like you're almost thinking in centuries instead. Is that true? I try to make work that does float in time a little bit. So you'll notice in my paintings, if there's figures, they're often in silhouette. Like we can't tell what they look like. We can't tell like how their hair is cut. So they feel like they could be a thousand years in the past or a thousand years in the future.

34:30Early on, the paintings from 20 years ago, I never included figures at all because I thought it would link it to a specific time period. But I try to make work that in that way, we could say it's timeless because it's not linked to a particular moment in time.

34:47Danielle:The first time I saw your work, it was the clock. The moving clock. The moving clock. Yeah. Thank you. I didn't know how to describe it. And then I saw you do the poker set. And I'm a big poker player because my dad taught me. And we go on a trip together once a year. And every time we go on a trip, we play poker. And I find myself learning a life lesson every time I play poker from him. And I don't go in thinking I'm going to learn something. I know that you play. Have you learned about life and when to take a bet and when to bet on yourself at all from the game? Or do you feel like I'm looking too deep into it?

35:25I mean, one of the interesting things is I did that poker event with World Series of Poker, which was actually a charity event that we did for Cooper Union. But generally, I don't gamble at all. I go to Vegas for work all the time. I was just in Macau. And I like to watch other people gamble. But I feel like betting, the only way you could say that I gamble is on myself in things that I do in my life. I take big risks with my work and with investing in my work. But poker I like because you're not really playing against the house, right? You're playing against other people. And so it's oftentimes about manipulation.

36:01And that part about it, there's some life lessons in that.

36:05Danielle:That's funny, Daniel. I never thought about that. I really enjoy when you talk about inspiration because you said when you were younger, it was more about proximity. And you're a professional artist. You go to work every single day. It's not really this lightning in a bottle the way people would think it would be for an artist. It's not effortless. It's not mystical. Do you think that people romanticize creativity because it's easier than respecting it as a discipline? It's like when people say like, oh, you're so talented. And I'm like, no, it took me 30 years to learn how to do that. To give like a physical example, it would be like talent exists as this little ball inside of a huge rock that you literally have to chisel away at for 30 years to get there.

36:51And sometimes, you know, you're chiseling on the rock and then it falls on you. It's like that much of an effort. And I think people romanticize it because oftentimes in history, we talk about these creative geniuses like Mozart or da Vinci, their talent or that lightning was actually just an obsessive quality that they had to learn the thing that they wanted to do. So talent or you talk about that lightning, it's really just being obsessed with the thing that you're trying to create.

37:24Danielle:Are you a therapy person? Have you looked into where that obsession comes from for you? No, I mean, it's a quality that repeats itself in multiple areas of my life. I talked about the golf thing. I've basically set my life up now where when I'm not in the city, I'm playing golf every single day. And I play the first tee time of the morning and I'm done at 9.30 and then I'm at the studio. I was talking to my caddy a couple of weeks ago and I was like, I've played like 500 rounds in the last two and a half years. And I'm like, I really should be better than I am by now. And he goes, you've played more golf in the last two years than most people play in their entire life in terms of the number of rounds.

38:06And so I think that obsessive quality just applies to many different areas of things. I've become interested in something I want to understand it and basically do it to the most possible excellent way that I can do it.

38:18Danielle:I'm a sucker for a book dedication. And I really like your opening line. You said, I make most of the things I make for the simple reason that I wish they existed. What did you feel like was missing that you wanted to create? I mean, this is one of the magical things about being an artist is, you know, when you make that thing, that's the only one of those that exists in the world at that moment. And if you're very good at it, you can make these things that other people invest in, not only with their money, right, that they're collecting or buying work, but that they invest in emotionally, they invest in conceptually, and that they think about over long periods of time.

39:01So there are works that I've made, which I know will exist in 100 years. And the reason I know that is because they're made of materials that are very difficult to destroy, like bronze. So So yeah, you have this magical possibility to create things with your hands. And as the world leans more and more into artificial intelligence and all of these kind of digital aspects of our life, I'm actually seeing this inverse quality where people are actually paying so much more attention to things that they know were made by hand. So people are interested in theater. People are interested in handcrafted clothing and objects and like anything that you know, literally was physically made by a person, I think now and in the future is going to have so much more value.

39:46Danielle:There's a luxury quality to it now, more so. I would agree. You kind of strike me as somebody that's winning the imagination game as a dad. I've seen these videos online, like dads will create these insane pancakes for their kids. And then the joke is who's eating them. What's one way that you like creating wonder for your kids? I mean, I've done so many like art projects with them. They are in some ways very different from me in that they're both obsessed with soccer, like to a level that, you know, you talk about my obsession with art. My little son, he fractured his ankle and I was talking to him last night.

40:24How's it feeling? Like, does it hurt or whatever? And he's like, I don't care. I'm just mad that I can't play. And it's like that level, their obsession with soccer is akin to my obsession with art when I I was the same age.

40:35Danielle:Has fatherhood changed the way that you imagine or create it all? Well, it gets you to relive a lot of that curiosity and you kind of re-see it through their experience of it. You know, I love taking them to museums and seeing exhibitions. They misrecognize things, you know, they kind of understand them in this very innocent way that it's hard for us to go back to that sense. And so that's a beautiful experience to have with them. I think that so many of our lives can be broken down into these series of moments. Some are memorable, some forgettable, some transformative. And you write your book, like your memories have this domino effect.

41:16Danielle:One thing leads into another. You even mentioned that in your work when you were talking about failure. Throughout the writing process, which moments sculpted you the most? So, you know, as I talked about, the way that I wrote this book was through speaking. And I think that's part of the reason why the book reads so conversationally is I literally just set aside a number of topics that I wanted to hit and then started recording those which were transcribed. And then I edited from there. And it was actually a friend of mine who's a writer. When I had finished the book, it was entirely chronological.

41:49Like I wrote it like I imagine any sort of, you know, memoir would be written. And he read it and he kind of was like, listen, like there's a lot of good stuff in there, but it's really boring to read it. Like I did this and then I did that. The book really now, I think it focuses on failure as a way of actually achieving things, right? Like building a bank of failures. And it really dives into this idea of mentorship and thinking about like, what are the things that are going to carry me through to the next iteration of my life and my work? So I would say the book is more written now, like for kind of any creative entrepreneur.

42:28It's not really just visual artists, right? could be somebody like you who's in podcasting, could be an actor or just a regular entrepreneur that's figuring out how to build a career or build something successful.

42:42Danielle:I agree with you. I think entrepreneurship in general is a creative space because you have to think outside the box no matter what lane you're in. I like that you consider yourself a student of life. What have you been devouring lately aside from golf? I mean, I've been traveling so much lately for this book tour. It's a lot of work. What's it been like for people to ask you all these invasive questions? It's definitely a new experience. Yeah. I mean, I knew that when I was writing this book that I was kind of putting some of my personal life out there, right? Like these are the ways that I think.

43:15And some artists make work that's really just about themselves and about the experience of them making it and some kind of like catharsis of doing that. And then other artists make the work to kind of have a dialogue with people. And I think my work leans into the second. It's like, this is a conversation that we're having. And the book kind of adds to that understanding. People only see me in the state that I'm in currently. I'm successful. I've built this whole career. I've built a visual language that people know and understand, but they didn't see all of those failures and the difficulties that went into that.

43:51So it's revealing a little bit of that. And somebody else who's going through that currently will be like, oh, well, I'm there.

43:58Danielle:When did it get easier? Like you talk about that guy that was living in his studio. I know it's still hard. It never gets easier. I was complaining yesterday to Jacqueline because I was in Los Angeles on Sunday. Then I flew to China on Sunday night. I was there for 36 hours and I came back here and then I'm like literally on TV this morning and I was like, this is driving me crazy. Like I put myself through so much and she goes, well, number one, you set yourself up for that. Like you chose to do these things. And number two, like have some gratitude that you literally just went across the world to exhibit this massive, you know, 25 foot tall sculpture that thousands of people came to the opening for.

44:39And so, you know, it's a lot of that perspective. It's like, I created all of these scenarios for myself.

44:46Danielle:These collaborations you do, I've always wondered how you figure this out because you've collaborated. I'm just going to name a few, but there are so many more brands. There's Pokemon, Tiffany's, Porsche. You've done so many collaborations and yet they don't dilute your brand. And you also reveal something new about yourself as an artist through these collaborations. But I never feel like it's sucking the blood from who you are. And I know working with brands, it's not easy to do because there are some stipulations, especially when it's a big collab. I mean, this is something that I go into in detail in the book, but the overwhelming feeling for me is that I've always worked with brands where I felt some connection either to the brand in the first place.

45:33So that's something like Porsche was like, I was obsessed with those cars when I was 16. And Dior, where I knew Kim Jones, who was the designer at the time, like I knew him as a friend. And so I knew that I was not going to have to deal with some of the difficulties of having a brand tell me what to do. And I can say that I've fortunately reached a point in my career where I can relatively say, guys, this is the limit of what I'm going to do. We are in some ways like the same, right? We're on the same level. So they typically won't ask me to do the types of things that would become challenging.

46:13Danielle:But when you were coming up, they must have. Honestly, the first major project that I did was with Adidas. And this was 2013. And they came to me and asked me to propose a project, which I did, which was this, you know, like, we want you to do this thing because I had already told them what I wanted to do. And this is another thing I talk about in the book. I've worked with the same attorney for the last 20 years. And if you're clear out of the gate about what you are willing and not willing to do, and you're willing to walk away, which I've had to do on numerous instances and leave significant finances on the table, at some point, people kind of understand and you have precedent to say like, well, DeOrdan asked me to do that.

47:01Tiffany didn't ask me to do that. That Ramoa, the list goes on. Like I achieved all of these things within this framework. It's how I work. And that's the way that we need to work together.

47:11Danielle:Okay, I have some rapid fire questions for you, Daniel. And then I promise you could go to bed. You're done with me. What is your favorite brand of watch? Well, it's Hublot because I designed it. Outside of creating, what's the number one way you lose track of time? Golf. The most underrated material that you make art with? The most underrated material, probably just a pencil and paper. The number one way you feel inspired every day? Travel, probably. Besides your actual art, what is the most artistic thing about you? Probably the gardens at my house. Who is a lesser known artist that you want to call out?

47:46I mean, I don't know if I would say lesser known artist, because he's quite well known, but the first person that came to mind is Samuel Ross.

47:52Danielle:The pop culture category behind your next creation? It's not really a pop culture category. Ancient Greece. Cool. Oh, do you get to go live in Greece to create it? No, don't have time for that. What's the last thing you took a picture of? Oh, it was the sculpture that I just unveiled in Macau. The art piece you want to be known for? Probably one of the large bronze works that I've installed outdoors. The song that makes you want to create? Maybe like something by Gibeon. I love Gibeon. I love that answer. The artist, actor, athlete that you'd love to collab with? Probably LeBron James. The identity of Banksy is?

48:28Damien Hurst.

48:30Danielle:My last question is out of this card game because we're virtual. Just tell me when to stop. Okay, stop. Oh, this is funny. Which personality trait has gotten you in the most trouble? Like OCD. And Daniel, what is something that every person should try once? Rally car driving. Unexpected answer. I love it. Daniel, I usually don't say this to people because I think it's a little trite, but I'm going to say it to you. Thank you for your time. My pleasure. Thank you.

49:00Danielle:Okay, you know what time it is. Today's a good day to have a good day. I'll see you next week.

49:20Danielle:This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human.