untitled from the “Cowboy” series
by Jose Dávila at Galeria OMR, Mexico City
40.2″x69″
archival pigment print
2014
courtesy of the artist and Galeria OMR, Mexico City
Kolaj Magazine asked Luigi Galimberti Faussone to report on Art Basel Hong Kong 2014, which took place 15-18 May 2014. Two-hundred-forty-five galleries from 39 countries were represented, with paintings taking the lion’s share of exhibited works. Only a handful of collages or collage-related work was on display.
Nevertheless, collage was to be found at Art Basel Hong Kong and Faussone chose work from three galleries: de Sarthe Gallery (Hong Kong), OMR (Mexico City), and The Drawing Room Contemporary Art (Manila and Singapore).
About Jose Dávila’s work at Galeria OMR, Faussone wrote:
The “Cowboy” series originates from the desire to play with artistic citations. In the 1980s the American painter and photographer Richard Prince created a series of artworks just by re-photographing the Marlboro Man’s advertisements of the time. Jose Dávila has replicated the replica, but by subtracting the subject of the advertisements (and, by consequence, of Prince’s photographs), he deprived the work of his predecessor of any sense…[T]he artistic operation which Jose Dávila has carried on does not limit itself to the realm of semantics. While the removal of the “Man” in the Marlboro’s Man compositions changes the meaning of those photographs, it also creates a new compositional balance in the pictures, which immediately gain in light and depth.
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