daniel arsham sets blue japanese zen garden overlooking rio's sugar loaf mountain

in rio de janeiro, daniel arsham has assembled an enormous japanese zen garden that overlooks the natural landscape of the city, and its famous sugar loaf mountain. ‘blue garden’ comprises a mix of media, including sand, stone, wood, concrete, plants. modern petrified artifacts replace the traditional stones as an element of decoration. ‘with cultural distancing, daniel arsham observes the karesansui, the buddhist art of the japanese zen gardens,’ describes curator marcello dantas. ‘he proposes to project into the future an archaeological site about our present time, in which different layers of knowledge and contamination overlap.’

all images by joana frança

presented by oi futuro — an institute dedicated to culture, education, and sustainability — arsham’s ‘blue garden’ re-interprets an ancient environment, important in japanese culture as a refuge for meditation and contemplation. here, the artist ornaments the sand landscape with contemporary ‘petrified’ artifacts from his practice, suggesting a contrast between the ancient and the modern. ‘where the stones should be, we find everyday objects,’ dantas continues, ‘petrified, functioning as a kind of geological expression, in dialogue with the monumentality of the geological expression of pão de açúcar — solemn, straight ahead, creating the strange equilibrium of this garden.’

the installation continues arsham’s work in color — a relatively new development in the colorblind artist’s career. last year, arsham began wearing and working with a pair of high-tech eyewear that artificially separates the wavelengths on the spectrum, making him able see colors he never had before. balancing on the line between art, performance and architecture, arsham reconstructs environments with elements that confuse and blend our expectations of space, time and form. ‘I try to create a space where the architecture seems to be in motion, as if in the process of forming or deforming,’ explains the artist.

Save