Steel Broken Figure

In 1865 Giuseppe Fiorelli, who was in charge of the excavation in Pompeii, worked out a method for making casts of the victims of the eruption of Vesuvius (79 A.D.). Through a small opening he had made in the petrified ashes, he poured in gypsum stucco. After the ashes had been removed, the outline of the bodies of those perished in the eruption emerged. These casts inspired Daniel Arsham to create a series of sculptures entitled Fictional Archeology. The artist employed natural materials such as selenite, obsidian, pyrite, volcanic ashes and crystal; in other words he made representations of people with the very materials that brought death to the residents of Pompeii. The work can also be interpreted as alluding to the fragility of human life.