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Enrico David: Destroyed Men Come and Go
Edited by Sofie Krogh Christensen
Published by KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, 2023
Enrico David (b. 1966, Italy) works in sculpture, painting, textiles, and installation, with drawing being key to his exploration of form. Mining a space between figuration and abstraction, David returns to the body as a point of departure, exploring the human figure as a metaphor for transformation. David’s interest in British and European modern sculpture has shaped his work, taking inspiration from the likes of Barbara Hepworth, Henry Moore, and Alberto Giacometti, while at the same time retaining an idiosyncratic aesthetic and provocatively ambiguous language. Made from bronze, silkscreen, steel, and plaster polymer, David’s human figures assume various poses, often entering a dialogue with the architecture that surrounds them—hugging the floor, leaning against walls, or being suspended from the ceiling. Through references to anatomy, metamorphosis permeates their forms and connects these works with nature. This continuous morphing is further mirrored in David’s manipulation of materials, with modeling and casting obscuring any clear understanding of their material origin.
Accompanying David’s first institutional solo exhibition in Germany, the artist book Destroyed Men Come and Go replicates, in both format and graphic layout, the publication Die Wiener Werkstätte 1903–1928: Modernes Kunstgewerbe und Sein Weg from 1929. Featuring contributions by Sofia Silva and Henrik Olesen, David sees the book as an extension of the exhibition, where translation, appropriation, and editing operate as equivalent processes to his sculptural practice.