The Dior Common Thread podcast series represents a fascinating new avenue for exploring the collaborations initiated by Kim Jones since his arrival at Dior. Each episode will present a compelling encounter with one of the inspiring figures who have participated in his endlessly original reinventions.

In conversation with Ed Tang, each recounts their unique experience and shares their singular vision, providing an immersive new window into the world of Dior men. 

Creative daring drives the House’s momentum today more than ever, and the Dior Common Thread podcast series explores the collaborations initiated by Kim Jones. For his Summer 2020 fashion show, the Artistic Director of the Dior men’s collections invited the artist Daniel Arsham to create scenography featuring fascinating and seemingly disintegrating monolithic sculptures spelling out the word "D.I.O.R". These were later also reproduced for sale in a scaled-down, limited-edition version. A true “archaeologist of the future”, the New York-based Arsham has built his work at the intersection of disciplines, initiating captivating dialogues between architecture and design, history and contemporary art. In this episode of Common Thread, Ed Tang talks to Arsham about working with Dior, his practice, his collaborations and the myriad aspects of his creative life. 

Daniel Arsham was born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1980, and grew up in Miami, Florida. He won a scholarship to Cooper Union School of Art in New York and was awarded the Gelman Trust Fellowship in 2003. Straight out of art school, Arsham opened an exhibition space called The House in Miami, where he met the Parisian art dealer Emmanuel Perrotin, who has represented him ever since. Continuing this rapid trajectory, he was invited to collaborate with the legendary choreographer Merce Cunningham on stage designs in 2005 and has worked in this vein fairly continuously since. He founded the architecture collaboration Snarkitecture with Alex Mustonen in 2007, and in 2014 established a film company, Films for the Future. 

Arsham has worked with numerous fashion and design brands in multiple design and creative capacities, and his work has been exhibited at PS1 and The New Museum in New York, the Contemporary Art Museum Miami, the Athens Biennial, and the Carré d’Art de Nîmes in France, among many others. 

Today, Ed Tang and Daniel Arsham get right to the crux of his practice, talking in detail about the wide frames of reference and expansive source material in his worldview and creative output. As an artist who views all his multidisciplinary endeavors as part of his overarching framework of creation, he thinks laterally about the world we live in and the future of creativity, and how it relates to the future of our planet. An avid collector, a trait he shares with Kim Jones, he views his collecting as an extension of his continuous education and understanding of objects and form.  

Arsham talks about his ideas around evolution and how he maintained his practice and indeed his working rhythm during lockdown, producing work with his children, preserving his connection to his studio and the life within it. He also delves into the world of painting and his return to this fundamental medium which was his introduction to image making in his art school days. The installation of large-scale canvases has been an enormous challenge, even in this biggest gallery spaces, but it is a challenge which this ultimate Renaissance man cannot but overcome.  

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