ONE OF THESE DAYS. ONE OF THESE DAYS.
ROBERT DAVIS
LUCE GALLERY
Turin, from February 14 to March 14, 2022
Online video featuring exhibition walkthrough
Exhibition view, One of These Days. One of These Days., Robert Davis, 2022, Photo PEPE Fotografia, Courtesy the artist and Luce Gallery, Turin
In Turin, from February 14 to March 14, 2022, Luce Gallery is pleased to present the solo show “One of These Days. One of These Days.” of Robert Davis.
“One of These Days. One of These Days.” is a newly created series of thirty intimately scaled watercolors. For these works, the American artist focuses on the “now”: a time that he defines as a reflection of the trauma, politics, social upheaval, and violence we are collectively enduring, and in so many different forms and times have always faced. Through the lens of both history and art history, his paintings intimate a transhistorical narrative that touches on the cycle of birth, death, and all struggles in between.
For his classically rendered work, Davis chose readily available imagery that spans popular culture and high art, images that are imbued with their own referential logic or, regardless of age, echo current realities. These include, among others: a classic rock album cover by Pink Floyd that is a homage to George Orwell‘s classic novel “Animal Farm”; a photograph of the killer Frankie Baker, who inspired the murder ballad “Frankie and Johnny” by Bill Dooley; old master paintings “Judith with the Head of Holofernes” by Cristofano Allori and “The Parable of the Blind” by Pieter Bruegel the Elder.
The notion of circularity in both the work and the exhibition title plays out more directly in pieces rendered multiple times: three of the same portrait of Marvin Gays, four versions of “Ophelia” after John Everett Millais, two paintings of the Grateful Dead’s iconic “skeleton”.
Davis’s style of appropriation might be understood as a kind of psychological exercise. His work’s reliance on repetition, returning, and revisiting implies a “working through” of a contemporary moment so burdened by its long history.
The exhibition walkthrough video will be online at www.lucegallery.com/video.php.
Robert Davis, Roses, 2022, watercolor on paper, 27.9 x 21.6 cm (11 x 8.5 in), Photo PEPE Fotografia, Courtesy the artist and Luce Gallery, Turin
Robert Davis, Ophelia after John Everett Millais II, 2022, watercolor on paper, 27.9 x 21.6 cm (11 x 8.5 in), Photo PEPE Fotografia, Courtesy the artist and Luce Gallery, Turin
Robert Davis, Día de Muertos, 2022, watercolor on paper, 27.9 x 21.6 cm (11 x 8.5 in), Photo PEPE Fotografia, Courtesy the artist and Luce Gallery, Turin
Robert Davis, Karen, 2022, watercolor on paper, 27.9 x 21.6 cm (11 x 8.5 in), Photo PEPE Fotografia, Courtesy the artist and Luce Gallery, Turin
Robert Davis, born in 1970 in Norfolk, Virginia, lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. He studied painting at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. His works have been exhibited at the Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk (2021), CUE Art Foundation, New York (2018), Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami (2016), CCA Andratx Kunsthalle, Mallorca (2015), Museo Nazionale di Capodimonte, Naples (2014), Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (2009, 2003), The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh (2008), Kunstmuseum Kloster Unser Lieben Frauen, Magdeburg (2008). More recently, in 2021, the artist has been included in the group show “There’s There There” at Hauser & Wirth Southampton, organized by da Rashid Johnson.
One of These Days. One of These Days.
Robert Davis
Luce Gallery
Turin, from February 14 to March 14, 2022
Opening: Monday, February 14, 6:30 - 8:30 pm
Largo Montebello 40, Italy
Hours: Tuesday to Friday, 3:30 - 7:30 pm
+39 011 18890206 / info@lucegallery.com / Instagram: lucegallery
Online videos featuring exhibition walkthroughs: www.lucegallery.com/video.php
Press Office: THE KNACK STUDIO / Tamara Lorenzi
tamara@theknackstudio.com / +39 347 0712934
info@theknackstudio.com / www.theknackstudio.com
ONE OF THESE DAYS. ONE OF THESE DAYS.
ROBERT DAVIS
LUCE GALLERY
Turin, from February 14 to March 14, 2022
Online video featuring exhibition walkthrough
Exhibition view, One of These Days. One of These Days., Robert Davis, 2022, Photo PEPE Fotografia, Courtesy the artist and Luce Gallery, Turin
In Turin, from February 14 to March 14, 2022, Luce Gallery is pleased to present the solo show “One of These Days. One of These Days.” of Robert Davis.
“One of These Days. One of These Days.” is a newly created series of thirty intimately scaled watercolors. For these works, the American artist focuses on the “now”: a time that he defines as a reflection of the trauma, politics, social upheaval, and violence we are collectively enduring, and in so many different forms and times have always faced. Through the lens of both history and art history, his paintings intimate a transhistorical narrative that touches on the cycle of birth, death, and all struggles in between.
For his classically rendered work, Davis chose readily available imagery that spans popular culture and high art, images that are imbued with their own referential logic or, regardless of age, echo current realities. These include, among others: a classic rock album cover by Pink Floyd that is a homage to George Orwell‘s classic novel “Animal Farm”; a photograph of the killer Frankie Baker, who inspired the murder ballad “Frankie and Johnny” by Bill Dooley; old master paintings “Judith with the Head of Holofernes” by Cristofano Allori and “The Parable of the Blind” by Pieter Bruegel the Elder.
The notion of circularity in both the work and the exhibition title plays out more directly in pieces rendered multiple times: three of the same portrait of Marvin Gays, four versions of “Ophelia” after John Everett Millais, two paintings of the Grateful Dead’s iconic “skeleton”.
Davis’s style of appropriation might be understood as a kind of psychological exercise. His work’s reliance on repetition, returning, and revisiting implies a “working through” of a contemporary moment so burdened by its long history.
The exhibition walkthrough video will be online at www.lucegallery.com/video.php.
Robert Davis, Roses, 2022, watercolor on paper, 27.9 x 21.6 cm (11 x 8.5 in), Photo PEPE Fotografia, Courtesy the artist and Luce Gallery, Turin
Robert Davis, Ophelia after John Everett Millais II, 2022, watercolor on paper, 27.9 x 21.6 cm (11 x 8.5 in), Photo PEPE Fotografia, Courtesy the artist and Luce Gallery, Turin
Robert Davis, Día de Muertos, 2022, watercolor on paper, 27.9 x 21.6 cm (11 x 8.5 in), Photo PEPE Fotografia, Courtesy the artist and Luce Gallery, Turin
Robert Davis, Karen, 2022, watercolor on paper, 27.9 x 21.6 cm (11 x 8.5 in), Photo PEPE Fotografia, Courtesy the artist and Luce Gallery, Turin
Robert Davis, born in 1970 in Norfolk, Virginia, lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. He studied painting at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. His works have been exhibited at the Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk (2021), CUE Art Foundation, New York (2018), Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami (2016), CCA Andratx Kunsthalle, Mallorca (2015), Museo Nazionale di Capodimonte, Naples (2014), Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (2009, 2003), The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh (2008), Kunstmuseum Kloster Unser Lieben Frauen, Magdeburg (2008). More recently, in 2021, the artist has been included in the group show “There’s There There” at Hauser & Wirth Southampton, organized by da Rashid Johnson.
One of These Days. One of These Days.
Robert Davis
Luce Gallery
Turin, from February 14 to March 14, 2022
Opening: Monday, February 14, 6:30 - 8:30 pm
Largo Montebello 40, Italy
Hours: Tuesday to Friday, 3:30 - 7:30 pm
+39 011 18890206 / info@lucegallery.com / Instagram: lucegallery
Online videos featuring exhibition walkthroughs: www.lucegallery.com/video.php
Press Office: THE KNACK STUDIO / Tamara Lorenzi
tamara@theknackstudio.com / +39 347 0712934
info@theknackstudio.com / www.theknackstudio.com
