Jose Dávila

Born in Guadalajara, Mexico, in 1974, where he lives and works.

 

Jose Dávila’s internationally-acclaimed work challenges the conventions of modern art by reconfiguring visual icons and transforming the pictorial into sculpture. Through an exploration of the tensions between space, form and visual recognition, his architectural and multidisciplinary approach invites a rethinking of notions of balance, stability and perception in contemporary art.

 

Influenced by his architectural background, Dávila makes use of both industrial materials and organic objects, which are arranged in the tridimensional space as basic elements of drawing – point, line and plane – unveiling the dynamics needed for objects to maintain their shape and occupy space in a specific manner. Human intervention and the arrangement of materials create hybrid systems that respond to structural intuitions, in which the technical unfolds as a poetic dimension.

 

Dávila’s work has been exhibited in institutions such as the Haus Konstructiv, Zürich; MoMA PS1, New York; Kunstwerke, Berlin; San Diego Museum of Art, San Diego; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid; Fundación/Colección JUMEX, Mexico City; Bass Museum of Art, Miami; Museu de Arte Moderna, Sao Paulo, BR; Museum Voorlinden, Wassenaar, among many others.

 

His work is part of esteemed public and private international collections, including the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; the Centre Pompidou, Paris; the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid; the Inhotim Collection, Brumadinho; the Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg, among others.

 

Jose Dávila has been recognised by awards such as the Baltic Artists’ Award in 2017 and as Artist Honorée at the Hirshhorn Museum in 2016. He has received support from the Andy Warhol Foundation and the National System of Creators of the National Fund for Culture and the Arts in Mexico. Dávila’s work has been featured in international publications such as Cream 3 (Phaidon), 100 Latin American Artists (Exit), and the monograph The Feather and The Elephant (Hatje Cantz).