Daniel Arsham designs limited-edition cover for Wallpaper’s 25th Anniversary Issue

In an epic limited-edition cover creation for our October 2021, 25th Anniversary Issue, artist Daniel Arsham has eroded the Wallpaper* masthead to mark the passage of time

Daniel Arsham Wallpaper* cover October 2021 25th anniversary issue
For his epic cover design for our 25th anniversary issue, Daniel Arsham redrew the Wallpaper* masthead, showing it eroded over the passage of time. Limited-edition covers are available exclusively to subscribers
(Image credit: press)

Throughout the last 25 years, Wallpaper* has borne witness to the rise of many creative careers. The meteoric ascent of the American multidisciplinary artist Daniel Arsham, over the past 15 of those years, has been one of the highlights, especially since his eroded, Future Relic objects and aesthetic are now instantly recognisable and synonymous with a cultish cool. Beyond institutional and gallery shows, his prolific creative practice includes collaborations with fashion labels like Kith and hip-hop moguls such as Pharrell Williams, under the Snarkitecture name, the collaborative design studio he co-founded with Alex Mustonen

To mark Wallpaper’s big birthday milestone, we invited Arsham to create our limited-edition cover this month, which features our very own logo rendered in the artist’s signature style (typically reserved for pop-cultural icons of the past and present, such as telephones, Pokemon, boomboxes and supercars). Speaking about the cover design, Arsham says, ‘The cover artwork imagines the Wallpaper* magazine as an eroding version of itself found in a distant future. The masthead has fallen from its normal position on the top of the magazine and is instead crumbling near the bottom of the magazine.’

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A portrait of Daniel Arsham lying down on a table, reading a blue book

(Image credit: Marko MacPherson, Art Direction: Michael Reynolds)


The recognisable cover treatment is a poetic counterpoint to Arsham’s second furniture collection, ‘Objects for Living II’, which is currently being exhibited at design gallery Friedman Benda in New York City. Building on the first collection of furniture that Arsham produced for the gallery in 2019, these new additions see Arsham continue his exploration of structural, material and temporal contrasts in functional form. His new work features hand-sculpted forms, originally made in Play-Doh – one of the materials readily available to Arsham while he was in lockdown at home with his family last year, and a vibrant colour palette to match. The highly considered furniture offering, which includes a bed, dining chairs, a dining table and a sofa among others, showcases an exciting new direction for the artist, which we look forward to observing for many years to come.

Subscribe to Wallpaper* today and receive limited-edition, artist-designed covers on your doorstep every month. For digital-only subscriptions, a special offer of 12 issues for $12 /£12 / €12 is currently available. 

INFORMATION

Daniel Arsham’s cover is the latest addition to the Wallpaper* limited-edition cover series, which features a specially created artwork by a different artist, architect or designer each issue, available exclusively to subscribers

Pei-Ru Keh is a former US Editor at Wallpaper*. Born and raised in Singapore, she has been a New Yorker since 2013. Pei-Ru held various titles at Wallpaper* between 2007 and 2023. She reports on design, tech, art, architecture, fashion, beauty and lifestyle happenings in the United States, both in print and digitally. Pei-Ru took a key role in championing diversity and representation within Wallpaper's content pillars, actively seeking out stories that reflect a wide range of perspectives. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and two children, and is currently learning how to drive.