Thank you for being here.
Congrats on the book.
It's a big deal.
You got some great people to talk about you on the back, as well.
Pharrell Williams?
Gunna?
Come on.
This is super fun.
It's failures, disasters, detours, and how I made a career as an artist.
Do you get afraid when you're writing these books to talk about your failures?
Or you're just.
I mean, you know, this book was really a kind of journey of thinking about how I got to the place where I'm at.
You know, so many people just see kind of the end.
They go to an exhibition.
They see the work.
But there's a lot that went into it.
Yeah.
Do you remember, as a kid, going, this is something I'm good at?
Were you drawing doodles?
I used to sit in front of the television and pause the TV and make drawings from different movies.
You know Star Wars, Indiana Jones.
Really?
That whole universe.
Yeah.
And then in third, no, it was fourth grade, I had a teacher.
Her name was Miss Perry.
Shout out.
Shout out, teachers.
My sister's a teacher, actually.
Love teachers.
Shout out, teachers.
Thank you, teachers.
Yes.
And so Ms.
Perry told my parents that I was unusually talented at drawing and so, In fourth grade?
In fourth grade.
And so they sent me to this kind of specialized art school, which was elementary school.
Then I went to junior high school, high school.
Was this in Cleveland?
This was in Miami.
Miami, wow.
And then you go, that's it, now you're just in art school.
Then I'm in art school and I applied to go to Cooper Union here in the city.
That's right. stories in the book, I was not initially accepted.
That was one failure and then tried again and got in second time.
Yeah, what was your first big break?
So there was an art dealer.
His name is Emmanuel Perrotin, who's one of the most famous art dealers in the world.
And about 25 years ago, I found out that he was gonna be in the city.
And I'm thinking to myself like how can I get to this guy and how can I convince him that he should give this kind of unknown artist right a chance?
So I found an art collector who had bought work from him that I knew got him to come over, and I built a full scale replica of his gallery out of cardboard, down to every last detail, like the flower vase on the desk, the plaster molding and everything.
And then I hung an exhibition of my work in it.
In the fake gallery?
In the fake gallery.
It was like full scale in my studio.
Did he freak out?
So he walks in the door and he kind of is like, He recognized immediately, right?
Like the question was in the sculpture that I had made.
And so we ended up doing that show.
That was 2005.
So, you know, 20 years ago.
Yeah.
And you've been with him ever since?
Yeah.
And I just opened a show here in New York with him.
That's in Lower East Side.
It all comes back.
Yeah.
Isn't that amazing?
Yeah.
Do you ever get to see some of your old stuff?
Actually, there's a funny story to that.
So I did that first show.
And next day, I go, and they tell me the entire show sold out.
I'm 23 years old.
I'm like, I made it.
I sold out my first exhibition.
And then about four years ago, I'm preparing a museum show.
And so I'm having dinner with Emmanuel and I said I'd love to go back and like find some of those works.
Like, can you help me?
Like, who are the collectors that bought them?
Yeah, because you don't see them.
No, I never see them again after.
And he turns to me and he says, well, I know where everything is from the show.
And just something about the way that he said it was like so he goes.
Yeah, I bought that whole show.
No way.
He was the one?
Yep.
He was the one that bought it.
He never told you?
He never told me until that point, no.
But that changes your life, because it gives you confidence, like, well, people like my stuff.
Exactly, yeah.
He liked it, yeah.
It's like, wow.
But look at the cool stuff you've done.
This book, by the way, is so inspiring and it's fantastic to hear about your ride, but also talk about your failures disasters, but also motivates you.
And there's a lot here that you talk about your mentor.
I'm not going to say who it is.
You have to read the book who inspired you.
But what is the one piece of advice that most resonates with you from your mentor?
I mean, he had this thing where he would say you know, the longer you wait to take that chance in your life, the shorter the future's gonna be when you arrive there.
So it's this idea that you know we have only so much time right on this earth.
There's somebody out there that's watching this.
That's like oh, I've been wanting to do this thing in my creative life.
Do the thing now.
Now is the time to do it.
Now is the time to do it.
Stop waiting.
Just do it and then figure it out.
Because we can all live with failure, right?
We can try, but living with regret is really difficult.
So live with your failures.
Don't have any regrets.
Love this.
Great advice.
You told me you brought me something, which is... Oh, I did bring you something.
You don't have to give me gifts, because you are the gift.
Okay, so in the book I made Well, here's what I brought you, which is the letter J that I've drawn for you.
And in the book, the first letter of every chapter, I've made a drawing for the letter.
So there's letter I. Yes.
And so I brought you the J. Oh my gosh.
I even signed it for you.
You are the best.
What are you talking about?
I didn't even want to talk over it.
Don't ever sell it or I'll know who sold it.
No, I would never in my life.
Oh my gosh.
Dude, do you?
I just did it in the dressing room.
Yeah, right.
I mean, when you make these things, do you know how intricate you're gonna make them as you're drawing it?
This one, I kind of sketch as I'm going and then fill in the little people.
It's like a game.
Yeah.
It's a game for a very talented player.
I'm happy the book is coming out.
Last time I talked to you, you mentioned wanting to do something around the city and you did it.
You pulled it off.
I don't want to tell anyone.
I did pull it off.
I can't believe you did it.
I'm revealing something here tonight, which is that- There's an Easter egg in the book.
This is an Easter egg.
Yeah.
I've hidden an artwork in New York City, And it's a sculpture that I've divided into three parts and placed in different locations in the city.
So people can find that.
The first clue of how to get there is in the book.
You have to read the whole book to figure it out.
It's a little bit cryptic, but once you find the work, you can actually make a rubbing of it with a piece of paper and a black crayon.
And then if you bring it to me, I'll sign it.
Okay, done.
All right, perfect.
All right, we're going to do this and find it.
And next time you're on, I'm going to look for it and find it.
All right, you look for it.
You're the best, bud.
Congratulations.
Daniel Arsham.
Future Relic comes out tomorrow.
Debbie Lovato performs after the break.
Stick around, everybody.
