Inauguration: Friday 5 October 2007, 6pm Jos? D?vila. Space after Space Direct Architecture, Politics and Space Curated by: Marco Scotini Coordinator: Domenico Berardinelli Jos? D?vila. Space after Space On Friday 5 October, the Borgovico 33 contemporary art space in Como inaugurates Space after Space, an exhibition by the young Mexican artist José Dávila and the third event in the project Direct Architecture. Politics and Space. Jos? D?vila. Space after Space A creator of transitory and contingent architectural scenarios, José Dávila produces site-specific interventions that simulate the existing structures on the façades and interiors of buildings. At the Camden Arts Centre in London in 2001 and the Casa de America in Madrid in 2005 he attached scaffolding that covered the two buildings with coloured grids like a parasite to the façades. Then, in Santiago, Chile, in 2002 and Prague in 2005 he imitated the supporting beams of the exhibition spaces, reconstructing them with recycled materials. As Marco Scotini explains "Jos? D?vila's artistic practice ranges from photographs to the construction of architectural models. Each time, he produces a specular duplicate of an actual piece of architecture in which the reproduction stands as a reduced, precarious and defunctionalized but versatile and open model. What Dávila does is create a space that portrays the architecture as such, with interventions that refute the intrinsic qualities of the constructed spaces and question the languages that define their credibility: a column that does not support, a false wall, scaffolding that is not needed and architectural models created by circumstance rather than design are some of the elements that recur in the Mexican artist's work. A pallet of bricks, a block of marble and wire mesh discarded in the street in Studies for Future Buildings (a series of photographs taken in 2006) become random and unplanned prototypes of Modernist buildings". Jos? D?vila. Space after Space In Direct Architecture Jos? D?vila?s intervention portrays the Como exhibition space on different levels. Unlike the projects by Maria Papadimitriou and Santiago Cirugeda, which were based on Terragni?s Novocomum and apartment-block terraces in Como, D?vila makes Borgovico 33 the focus of his research. By trying to recreate the interior space of the former church in the negative, D?vila wants to make the place itself visible to the eyes of onlookers. The large hanging installation is a monolithic assembly of wood, aluminium and neon ? and was conceived as a sort of echo or sculptural double of the cultural association?s spatial shell. A platform three meters above the pavement that reproduces the plan of Borgovico 33 free in the emptiness of the church like a big roof covered with industrial ceiling panels. Jos? D?vila. Space after Space D?vila combines a Minimalist dictate with a cultural matrix of Mexican origin that sweeps from the architecture of Barragan to that of Mathias Goeritz and to Muralism. Indeed, it is no chance that a mural is used for another portrayal of the space in the exhibition. This work was specially created for the occasion and it shows another distorted and adulterated version of the interior of Borgovico 33, created with virtual surfaces and realized with the compositional principles of David A. Siqueiros? polyangular perspective. As in a room of mirrors, the different versions of the same object upset our concept of the static quality and crystallization of physical space, thus a space is always the sum of all its possible representations. A photograph at the entrance from the series Studies for future buildings declares the specific relationship in Jos? D?vila between architectural models and spaces encountered by chance in occasional and unforeseen ways. José Dávila (Guadalajara, 1974) trained as an architect. He lives and works in Guadalajara and Berlin. He has produced site-specific photographic works and spatial installations. He has exhibited his work since 1998 and participated in numerous international collective exhibitions. These include: Mexico City at the PS1 in New York and the Kunstwerke in Berlin in 2002, the Puerto Rico Bienal in 2002, Farsites at the San Diego Museum of Modern Art in 2005, Prague Biennale 2 in 2005, Eco: Arte Contemporaneo Mexicano at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia in Madrid in 2005. He has had personal exhibitions at the Camden Arts Centre in London (2001) and the El Eco museum in Mexico City (2006). The project will be accompanied by a catalogue, to be published at the end of the exhibition cycle in spring 2008. JOSÉ DÁVILA Sistema aperto 1, Sistema aperto 2 H244 x 276 x 76, H244 x 190 x 90 Wood, cartonchalk, paint 2006 Courtesy Studio Dabbeni JOSÉ DÁVILA Globalization-theworld Lambda print cm 45 x 59 2001 Courtesy Studio Dabbeni Exhibition information Title: Direct Architecture. Politics and Space Curated by: Marco Scottini Coordinator: Domenico Berardinelli Title: José Dávila. Space after Space Period: 5 October – 18 November 2007 Inauguration: 5 October 2007, 6pm At: Associazione Culturale Borgovico 33, via Borgo Vico n° 33 - Como Admission: free, Friday-Sunday 3pm-8pm or by appointment Info: Elide Brunati tel. +39 031 576029 fax +39 031 3385220 info@bv33.org www.bv33.org Press office: Ilaria Gianoli ilariagianoli@tin.it tel. 02 514406 - 333 6317344 With the contribution of: Thanks to: