Memory of a Telluric Movement

Statics and dynamics, tension and compression forces as well as the unstable moment before something falls or tears are defining aspects of Jose Dávila's objects and installations. The trained architect combines natural materials such as stone and marble with industrial products such as mirrors and panes of glass. Fixed by colorful tension belts, concrete cubes or steel girders, these works present themselves as bold balancing acts, in equilibrium between physical experimentation and poetic setting. The formally and materially reduced aesthetics of such objects can also be found in Dávila's large-format, abstract-geometric paintings and screen prints, which he mostly creates on untreated canvases.

For his exhibition at Museum Haus Konstruktiv, Dávila placed a wide selection of his objects and individual painterly works, all of which also function as independent works, in relation to each other and to the museum architecture. Through the
finetuning of parameters such as proportions, visual axes, reflections or movement choreographies, the space as a whole is dynamized and the individual works are brought together to form exciting ensembles; from a delicate arrangement of metre high steel supports in the middle of the room to a backdroplike staging of semitransparent mirror panels in a precarious inclined position.

Production: Jose Dávila
Language: German / English
21.5 x 27.6 cm, softcover
185 pages
ISBN 978-607-99585-4-1

Susan York (*1951)

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