American Wall Nut

DAVIDE BALULA
AMERICAN WALL NUT

FEBRUARY 26TH - APRIL 4TH, 2009
OPENING RECEPTION
FEBRUARY 26TH, 6 - 8PM

Fake Estate and independent curator Béatrice Gross are pleased to announce the opening on February 26, 2009 of American Wall Nut, an anarchitectural installation by French artist Davide Balula.

Emptied of its usual markers of labor and display, the interstitial space of the transfigured, hardly150 square foot exhibition venue evokes, with its parqueted floor and bare walls, an abandoned domestic space. In the back of the room, as though the perpendicular planes of the floor and the wall had folded onto each other and left a trace of their unlikely encounter, fragments of walnut lumber encrusted in the dry wall and strips of plaster inlayed in the parquet floor mirror each other in a strict inversion of matter.

The reflective motif reveals itself as inherently site-specific, as it is determined by the modular relationship between the wood paneling and the general structure of the ground it covers. Paradoxically, despite its three-dimensional embodiment, Balula’s geometric intarsio prevails as an essentially bi-dimensional delineation: the artist draws here with space, like others draw with ink or graphite.

If, not unlike the ornamental art of marquetry in the Italian Renaissance, the artist’s environment relates ultimately to sculpture, architecture, and pictorial composition at once, its purpose exceeds merely formal explorations: suggesting, with a tremendous economy of means, a magical phenomenon, Balula investigates the structure of space, giving life, through a delicate conjuring trick, to the inanimate.

Davide Balula is represented by Galerie Frank Elbaz (Paris). He has shown internationally, in numerous venues such as Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris; Museums Quartier, Vienna; Museum of Contemporary Art of Kyoto; Museum of Contemporary Art of North Miami; Total Museum, Seoul. He is currently a member of the LMCC Residency Program.
Fake Estate was launched in 2007 by Julia Trotta. The unusually small space, a former utility closet in the West Chelsea Arts Building, houses a series of focused, experimental projects. While some will call for intimate inspection, others will restrict viewers from entering the space. Fake Estate serves as an alternative to the traditional art venue, challenging both the artist and the viewer to think within the very small box.

Fake Estate is open Thursday - Saturday, 12-6PM and by appointment.

FAKE ESTATE
526 W. 26th St. #502A
New York, NY 10001
Fake Estate.Us

The Lie Was Plain. The Lake A Stain.

PUBLICATION
DAVIDE BALULA - STOMACH RAINBOW
BOOK RELEASE ON JUNE 20 2008
at Le Confort Moderne (F-Poitiers)
with a live guitar-voice by Davide Balula
7.pm Free Entrance
Edition: 1000 copies.

Davide Balula is a multifaceted artist, barely thirty years old, who demonstrates the same conceptual fidelity whether it be in the field of music or any of the creative arts. Composer, musician, songwriter, dabbler in electronics with several collectives, founder of «L’appareil» («The Apparatus», an open stage organization for various artistic projects), he has worked with Le Confort Moderne for four years. Some of the joint projects include a exhibition of his first works for Low_Fidelity accompanied by a live concert for the twentieth anniversary of Le Confort Moderne and «Live in the Green House» by Peter Coffin, with Labranisch, accompanied by the release on vinyl of the same. It seems only natural to present an exhibition dedicated to his whole works and productions, an opportunity to take a look at this «work in progress», to show a range of emblematic works, interspersed with important new productions.

Davide expresses himself through visual cues, sounds, electronics and plastics. His experimental techniques are free from contingencies and therefore from logic itself. His works are at the cusp of the artistic and the scientific world, where sound, rhythm and movement (three elements essential to the deployment of his works) progress together towards a result at once organic and technological. The manufactured objects and technological material leave at first glance an impression of mechanical frigidity, whereas the detail of the drawings, the presence of vegetable matter, the music and sound lead into a fragile and poetic universe.

Art and technology, audio and visual, nature and the artificial alteration and suspension of time, sculptural forms and organic shapes, material solidity opposed to the potential energy within; Balula’s project brings together diametrically opposed states of being, places us at the heart of an experience that aims, not to blatantly explain, but rather to gently infl uence our entire gestalt. A composition that oscillates between sophistication and rampant pillage, finely scripted, that leads us from an authoritarian beginning to a poetic finish. Musical references throng throughout Davide Balula’s work; the names of the works are reminiscent of pop song titles, and the exhibition, an album title : Live at Le Confort Moderne.

Photo : © Pierre Antoine

As the mutation of ideas is demonstrated by the ensemble of Balula’s works, so does the book present an ongoing transformation of discussion: by virtue of a literally timed lecture (in place of the page number is the estimated time of reading) the writing reaches out to two opposite poles, critical analysis and evocative poetry, both inextricably linked.
Published for the occasion of the exhibition The Lie Was Plain. The Lake a Stain. at Le Confort Moderne, this work, part autobiography, part portfolio, explores the multilayered creations of Davide Balula. A well-measured balance of essays, notes, and interviews, combined with artistic contributions, the whole is punctuated by a selection of Balula’s works from 2003 onwards.
Once opened, fragments of the book take on a new function; the reader finds himself having invested in a tool of unsuspected virtues: correctly positioned on each chapter heading, a mysterious bookmark re-establishes the completeness of the titles...

More than a simple printed book, the work encloses several other secrets which provide the reader with the pleasure of a surprising exploration.

Contributors :
Kathy Alliou, Laetitia Bénat, Julien Berthier, Yann Chevallier, Peter Coffin, Antonio Contador, Angela Detanico, Béatrice Gross, Rafael Lain, Olivier Lamm, Stéphane Laporte, Le Gentil Garçon, Christine Macel, Valeria Motelli, Rui Pombal, Elisa Pône, Lee Ranaldo, Mirjam Schaub, Leah Singer, Francesco Stocchi

Le Lac , Le Mensonge
Le Confort Moderne
185, rue du faubourg du pont-neuf
BP 502 – 86012 Poitiers

DAVIDE BALULA LE LAC, LE MENSONGE

I sit down in front of my computer, starting to play with the mouse to move the arrow on the screen. It's not working. The arrow doesn't react. But the mouse seems to work; its red light is on. I'm checking the connections between the mouse and the computer, but everything looks ok. I'm stressing out. I hate when computers are not working, and above all when I don't understand why.
It took me 15 minutes losing my nerves on it. Then I turn the mouse over, and what I discover is a note sticked to it signed: "Davide"!

Davide Balula is a funny, malicious, practical joker artist. He reminds me a kind of physicist or chemist apprentice, visionary, overflowed with interesting ideas, playing, performing, testing. He's not only a visual artist but a songwriter, with a delicate voice, reminiscence of Portuguese harmony on a folky atmosphere. His debut album was out on Active Suspension ... already few years ago.

Davide's sliding around on his skateboard. He looks somehow innocent, but he's got a smart fancy stare upon his artistic approach.

Exhibition:LE LAC, LE MENSONGE
Artist: DAVIDE BALULA
From May 16th to August 31st 2008
Entrepôt-Galerie du Confort Moderne

Opening Friday May 16th 2008
Live: Tender Forever

For Le Confort Moderne, Davide Balula is producing a monographical exhibition.
Davide Balula articulates his work around visual, sound, and electronic devices. His practice, somehow experimental, is free from its contingencies. His work is located at the border of art and science, when the sound, the rhythm, the movement are progressing together towards an organic and techonoligical matter. The art and the technology, the sound and the visual, the nature and the science, the sculpture and the organic,
Balula's project brings together contradictory states, places us inside an experience that tends to inflect our relation to the world. A composition that swings in-between sophistication and simplicity, a precise and rigorous writing, a path that delivers a poetic experience. Each work's titles sound like a pop ritornello, and set the exhibition like an album.

June 20th
Monographical Catalogue Release + Davide Balula's live
Artist: Davide Balula
Art Direction: Event10

With contributions of Béatrice Gross, Kathy Alliou, Laetitia Bénat, Julien Berthier, Peter Coffin, Antonio Contador, Olivier Lamm, Stéphane Laporte, Angela Detanico & Raphael Lain, Loris Gréaud, Le Gentil Garçon, Christine Macel, Rui Pombal, Elisa Pône, Lee Ronaldo, Mirjam Schaub, Leah Singer,

le confort moderne association l’oreille est hardie
185, rue du faubourg du pont-neuf
BP 502 – 86012 Poitiers
Tel : +33 (0)5 49 46 08 08
www.confort-moderne.fr