Time Fold Exhibition: When Daniel Arsham Bends Time at Perrotin Gallery
- Delphine & Romain Class
- 1 day ago
- 6 min read
The exhibition Time Fold marks a major new milestone in the career of American contemporary artist Daniel Arsham. Presented by Perrotin in London, the exhibition brings together sculptures, drawings, paintings, and personal archives around a question that has run through the artist's work for more than twenty years: how can time be represented when it ceases to be linear?
Since the early 2000s, Daniel Arsham has developed an instantly recognizable visual language situated at the crossroads of contemporary art, archaeology, architecture, and science fiction. His works appear to come from a distant future in which our civilization has disappeared, leaving behind relics that imaginary archaeologists rediscovered centuries later.
With Time Fold, the artist pushes this reflection even further and invites visitors to move through a space where different eras blend together, respond to one another, and sometimes become completely indistinguishable.
What does "Time Fold" mean?
The title of the exhibition itself serves as a statement of intent.
The expression Time Fold refers to the idea that time is not a straight line running from past to future, but rather a flexible material capable of bending, overlapping, and folding back onto itself.
This idea is omnipresent in Daniel Arsham's work. In his artistic universe, a Greek statue can coexist with a camera from the 1980s, while a contemporary technological object may be displayed as a relic centuries old. Past, present, and future become simultaneous layers rather than separate periods. This approach resonates strongly with our own era, characterized by the constant acceleration of technology and the increasingly rapid obsolescence of everyday objects.
Fictional archaeology: Daniel Arsham's artistic signature
It is impossible to discuss Time Fold without mentioning the concept of "fictional archaeology," which lies at the heart of the artist's practice. For nearly two decades, Daniel Arsham has imagined scenarios in which the emblematic objects of our civilization survive the collapse of the contemporary world. Mobile phones, video game consoles, cameras, radios, and sports equipment become the modern equivalents of Greek amphorae or Roman statues unearthed during archaeological excavations.
The artist transforms these objects by applying effects of erosion, fracture, and crystallization. Surfaces appear worn away by time. Cavities emerge within the material. Crystals grow as if geological phenomena had slowly invaded the sculptures over centuries. The result creates a strange feeling of familiarity and distance. Viewers immediately recognize the objects depicted, yet they seem to belong to a civilization that vanished long ago.
An exhibition spanning nearly twenty years of creation
Unlike exhibitions centered around a single series, Time Fold adopts a much broader approach. The exhibition brings together works produced over nearly twenty years, allowing visitors to observe the gradual evolution of Arsham's artistic practice. Visitors encounter both recent pieces and historical works that are rarely shown together. This broader perspective offers a particularly compelling reading of his artistic journey.
Early graphic experiments enter into dialogue with his most recent monumental sculptures, revealing the persistence of certain visual obsessions: ruins, memory, everyday objects, classical references, and traces left by the passage of time. In this sense, the exhibition functions as a kind of archaeological excavation of the artist's own career.
Classical sculpture at the heart of the exhibition
One of the most striking aspects of Time Fold is the significant presence of references to Antiquity. Greek busts, mythological figures, and heroic representations appear throughout the galleries. Yet these works never seek to faithfully reproduce historical models.
Instead, Daniel Arsham transforms them into hybrid objects that belong simultaneously to both past and future. Some sculptures appear to have been discovered after centuries underground. Others seem to disintegrate under the effects of slow mineral erosion. Still others are crossed by crystalline formations that evoke both geology and science fiction. This encounter between classical heritage and futuristic imagination is one of the artist's strongest aesthetic signatures.
It also raises questions about our relationship with cultural memory.
Why do some works survive through the centuries while others disappear entirely? How does a society decide what deserves to be preserved?
Popular culture transformed into the heritage of the future
One of Daniel Arsham's greatest strengths is his ability to place masterpieces of art history and objects from popular culture on equal footing. In his universe, an analogue camera, an audio cassette, or a gaming console can acquire the same symbolic value as an ancient sculpture.
This approach directly challenges traditional cultural hierarchies. The objects surrounding us today appear ordinary because they belong to our everyday lives. Yet in several hundred years, they may become the most valuable witnesses to our civilization. By transforming these objects into imaginary archaeological relics, the artist forces us to reconsider our perspective on contemporary material culture.
Sand and the fragility of civilizations
The exhibition also presents several works made from compacted sand.
The choice of this material is far from insignificant. Sand naturally evokes time, erosion, and disappearance. It recalls hourglasses, deserts, and ruins gradually buried beneath natural elements.
Unlike marble or bronze, traditionally associated with the permanence of sculpture, sand suggests fragility and instability. Through these works, Daniel Arsham seems to remind us that all civilizations, even the most powerful, eventually disappear. Human history appears as a succession of construction and collapse.
Archival drawings exhibited for the first time
One of the major interests of Time Fold lies in the presentation of several historical drawings created between 2007 and 2010. These works on paper provide insight into the genesis of many ideas that now permeate his artistic production. Visitors discover architectural studies, formal research, and visual experiments that already foreshadow the artist's future sculptures.
These archives demonstrate that Daniel Arsham's universe did not emerge suddenly but rather resulted from a long process of intellectual and aesthetic maturation.
They also constitute a valuable document for understanding the evolution of his visual language.
A reflection on our relationship with technology
Beyond its aesthetic qualities, Time Fold offers a particularly relevant reflection on our relationship with technology. Never before have objects been replaced so quickly as they are today. Mobile phones become obsolete within only a few years. Computers are constantly renewed. Storage media disappear in favor of increasingly immaterial digital solutions.
In this context, Daniel Arsham's work acts as a slowing mechanism. The artist asks viewers to imagine what these objects will represent several centuries from now.
Which objects will tell future generations the story of our era? Which symbols will enable historians to understand our way of life, our habits, and our beliefs?
Why Time Fold matters for contemporary art
Beyond its spectacular dimension, Time Fold occupies an important place within the contemporary art landscape. The exhibition demonstrates Daniel Arsham's ability to create an instantly recognizable universe while constantly renewing his forms and materials. It also confirms the unique position he occupies at the intersection of sculpture, architecture, design, popular culture, and science fiction.
Few contemporary artists today manage to engage such a broad audience while maintaining such conceptual coherence.
This ability largely explains the growing influence of his work on younger generations of creators.
An exhibition that transforms our perception of time
Ultimately, the true achievement of Time Fold may lie in its ability to alter our perception of time itself. The exhibition does not simply present sculptures and drawings; it offers an intellectual experience in which visitors are invited to view history as a series of overlapping layers rather than a fixed chronology.
The future becomes a tool for looking at the present. The past becomes a projection toward the future. Through his imaginary ruins and relics from the future, Daniel Arsham reminds us that the objects surrounding us today are already the archives of tomorrow.
With Time Fold, the artist delivers one of his most ambitious reflections on memory, disappearance, and cultural transmission.
The exhibition once again confirms his place among the most influential contemporary artists of his generation and offers the public an experience in which art becomes a machine for travelling through time.
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