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CHAMBRE ART: Jose Dávila

Jose Dávila (Guadalajara, Mex, 1974) is a multidisciplinary artist based in Guadalajara city.


For over a decade, Dávila’s practice has explored spatial occupation and the transitory nature of physical structures. After studying Architecture at the Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Occidente (Mex) he dedicates himself to artistic work that he learns as a self-taught artist.

Dávila is primarily known for his assemblages—spatial investigations and hybrids of painted wood, found objects, and plastics that resemble maquettes or semi-functional structures. He is influenced by Donald Judd, Jannis Kounnellis, and Sol LeWitt. His work investigates how the modernist movement has been translated, appropriated, and reinvented.

The artist's sculptural work is based on the specificity of the employed materials, their origin, symbolic value and their formal characteristics are elements that take great significance; industrial materials interact with organic raw materials. With these sculptures Dávila intends to provide visibility to the physical processes that are required in order for things to maintain their shape and occupy space in a specific manner.


The work of Jose Dávila has been exhibited at Yuz Museum, Shanghai, CN; Museo Universitario del Chopo, Mexico City, MX; Sammlung Philara, Düsseldorf, DE; Museo del Novecento, Firenze, IT; Getty’s PST LA/LA Triennial, Los Angeles, USA; Blueproject Foundation, Barcelona, SP; Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg, DE; Marfa Contemporary, Marfa, USA; Savannah College of Art and Design, Savannah, USA; Gemeentemuseum, Den Haag, NL; Museum Voorlinden, Wassenaar, NL; Museo Universitario de Arte Contemporáneo MUAC, Mexico City, MX; Caixa Forum, Madrid, SP; MoMA PS1, New York, USA; Kunstwerke, Berlin, DE; San Diego Museum of Art, San Diego, USA; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid, SP; MAK, Vienna, AT; Fundación/Colección JUMEX, Mexico City, MX; Bass Museum of Art, Miami, USA; Museu de Arte Moderna, Sao Paulo, BR; among others.

The artist has been awarded with the 2017 Baltic Artists’ Award in the UK and is a 2016 Honoree of the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington DC, USA. Dávila has received scholarships and funding from the Andy Warhol Foundation and the Sistema Nacional de Creadores del Fondo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes, Mexico.


He lives and works in Mexico.


Jose Dávila, The Act of Perseverance, 2020. Installation view for the 22nd Biennale of Sydney (2020), Cockatoo Island. Commissioned by the Biennale of Sydney. Photograph: Zan Wimberley.

Jose Dávila, The Act of Perseverance, 2020. Installation view for the 22nd Biennale of Sydney (2020), Cockatoo Island. Commissioned by the Biennale of Sydney. Photograph: Zan Wimberley.


Jose Dávila, The Stone that The Builder Refused, granite slabs , metal ring, ratchet straps, 2017.


The Moment Of Suspension, Jose Davila's Solo Exhibition at König Galerie In Berlin, 26.10.2019–9.2.2020.


Jose Davila, Los Límites de lo Posible, 2019. Detrás del Muro, XIII Bienal de La Habana, La Habana, CUBA.


Jose Dávila, Aporía VII, Red Dragon granite, Niwala yellow sandstone and smoked glass, 2017.





We do not own the rights to any of the pictures. All the rights go to the authors of the pictures.


Full credits of the pictures:

Jose Dávila

König Gallery

Sean Kelly Gallery

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