Enrico David: Domani Torno

Specifically conceived for the Manica Lunga, the exhibition unfolds through a dialogue between figuration and abstraction, focusing on the body as a metaphor for transformation. With a layout that evokes theatrical scenography and design displays, the exhibition retraces the key moments of David’s artistic production, including new works created for the occasion.

Domani torno is both a personal and artistic journey: from his origins in Ancona to his move to London in 1986, the exhibition follows the development of a practice grounded in the quest for a linguistic universe in which to exist. Through various media, David explores the human figure as a site of metamorphosis and reflection. In this journey, drawing plays a central role as a unifying language, since, as the artist states, “the space of dreams and the space of drawing are both infinite.”

Many works arise from the urgent need to process traumatic experiences, such as the sudden loss of his father. “Creativity, for me, is an opportunity to change the condition of pain”, David says. “It is a redemption, an alternative destination to suffering. Art is what makes reality more bearable.” Starting in the late 1990s, David’s installations became fully interdisciplinary worlds: visionary stages weaving together current events, memory, popular culture, and theatrical rhetoric. Notable examples include Madreperlage (2003), Absuction Cardigan (2009), and Ultra Paste (2007), where the artist constructs scenographic devices imbued with emotional and symbolic tension.

Over time, the artist’s practice has evolved toward increasing formal synthesis, culminating in sculptural work that delves into the face as a site of connection and knowledge. Beginning with the exhibition Life Sentences (2014), David investigates the face through hyper-expressive, material renderings in wax to evoke emotion and intensity. Among the works on display are: Trenches to Reason (2021), two suspended forms blending geology and technology; Tutto il Resto Spegnere, presented at the Italian Pavilion of the Venice Biennale in 2019; and a selection of sculptural studies including Sign for Lost Mountaineers Hair Grooming Station (2004), Pebble Lady (2014), and Racket II (2017). Numerous drawings, newly produced large-scale paintings, tapestries, and embroidered canvases, along with the ongoing Teatrini series (begun in 2005), complete the exhibition.

“In an era dominated by artificial intelligence and digital dematerialization, Enrico David’s work stands as a statement of resistance to decoding, and as an ode to the physical body, sensory experience, and the power of imagination”, as the curator Marianna Vecellio says. The exhibition offers a reflection on contemporary identity, particularly the relationship between body, gender, and self-perception. “In my work, gender has a kind of unconscious irrelevance,” the artist says. “Identities brush against each other, they exchange, they are put back into question.”