Steven Arnold
Death of Simplicity
1984
Silver Gelatin Photograph
7 3/4 x 7 13/16 in (19.7 x 19.8 cm)
Image courtesy of Del Vaz Projects
Steven Arnold (b. 1943, Oakland – d. 1994, Los Angeles) worked across drawing, sculpture, painting, printmaking, costume design, theater, film, and photography.
From Catholicism to Art Nouveau and Egyptomania, Arnold’s pick-and-choose, East-meets-West style reflected what he felt was ‘the primary signifier of psychedelic culture… promot[ing] confusion while at the same time postulating equality. A love child of California’s myriad twentieth-century subcultures, Arnold straddled the bohemianism of the beatniks, the LSD fantasy of Haight-Ashbury, the devotion of the occultists, and the faux grandeur of Golden-Age Hollywood.
Part of Arnold’s “Reliquaries” photo series, Death of Simplicity belongs to the artist’s celebrated tableaux vivants staged in Zanzabar, his home and studio on Beverly Boulevard in Los Angeles. Two figures appear adorned with electronic gadgets, CDs, and cross-shaped patches of collaged bric-a-brac. Where technological developments aimed at improving everyday life often resemble acts of faith, the photograph may be read as a critique of their messianic appeal, whose promise ironically displaces the spiritual through a blind faith in functionality and material.
The sitters were a couple known to Arnold, owners of a Los Angeles punk vintage store Arnold frequently visited alongside Pic ‘N’ Save and other dime-stores providing the objects with which he constructed his reliquaries.
A maximalist spirit and trashy opulence which resonates with other works of the collection such as Thomas Lanigan-Schmidt’s Memories of Luv (1973) and Byzantine Neo-Platonic Rectangles #19 (1986-93).
In 1988, Arnold was diagnosed with AIDS, from which he died in 1994.
Provenance
Del Vaz Projects, Los Angeles
Exhibitions
“Steven Arnold: Cocktails in Heaven,” Del Vaz Projects, Los Angeles, February 25 – April 25, 2026
See also
Steven Arnold in the collection of the Getty Museum