Daniel Arsham USA, 1980

"This labyrinth edition takes the architecture of my larger labyrinth sculptures and distills it into a smaller work. The form recalls the calm profiles of ancient Rome or Greece, but the interior is carved into a network of staircases, chambers, and quiet architectural passages. The figure becomes a kind of map of the mind. Each turn suggests a memory. Each room suggests an emotion. The labyrinth becomes a way of visualizing how thought moves through us, never in a straight line but always through unexpected corridors.
The materiality is central. The entire work is cast in sand, a substance that is usually fragile and temporary. In this form it becomes permanent and monumental. That tension between ephemerality and endurance is part of the meaning. Sand is something we associate with erosion and time slipping through our hands, but here it holds a face, a structure, and an interior world. The work becomes a reminder that the subconscious is built from things that feel fleeting yet ultimately shape the foundation of who we are."