Friends With You

FriendsWithYou

Samuel Albert Borkson and Arturo Sandoval III
Motto	Magic, Luck, and Friendship!
Formation	2002
Type	Sculpture, experimental art, installation art, performance art, public art, animation, spiritual engineering
Website	www.friendswithyou.com

FriendsWithYou (FWY) is an art collaborative based in Los Angeles, California, founded in Miami, Florida, by Samuel Albert Borkson (b.1979, Plantation, Florida) and Arturo Sandoval III (b. 1976, Havana, Cuba) in 2002, which seeks to redesign spirituality, rituals, and religious acts for modern day usage and connectivity. FriendsWithYou’s mission coincides with their motto "Magic, Luck, and Friendship."

The collaborative began by creating soft sculptures as a means to spread more accessible art like plush and wood toys, as well as immersive art installations, fine art works including sculpture and painting, and are best known for their public art spectacles such as large-scale art installations, playgrounds, and performance pieces. They have described the creation of their art as a healing process intended to increase relatability and connection to each other and the world around them. To date, they have become internationally recognized with public exhibits and artworks in Europe, Asia, Australia, and The Americas.

FriendsWithYou Fine Art has been exhibited and/or included in the permanent collections of Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), the Indianapolis Museum of Art (IMA), Haus der Kulturen der Welt Museum Berlin, and Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin among others. In October 2006, the German art press Die Gestalten Verlag published a FriendsWithYou monograph titled Friends With You Have Powers!

FriendsWithYou have explained that their art is meant to "activate the social interaction of people as exploded and refracted by the Internet and elaborate new modes of interpersonal relationships."

They use play as an artistic means to foster these relationships. Many FriendsWithYou works look like toys because they are meant for play as a means of interactive unstructured free association. FWY hopes that "through their artwork, the buried, neglected urges and yearnings that a seasoned art viewer may not expect to have activated; playfulness, laughter and inquisitiveness are triggered, with an end result of feeling connected."

FWY inverts the practice and usage of religious traditions, symbols, and spiritual practices through play to open a connection to the divine.