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David Medalla / The Philippines/United Kingdom 1942–2020 / Adam Nankervis (photographer) / Australia/Germany b.1963 / Homage to the Paris Commune – Montmartre Paris 2013, printed 2015 / Documentation of collaborative performance, Inkjet print on Hahnemühle Bamboo paper, ed. 1/3 (2 A.P.) / 49.9 x 50cm / Purchased 2015. Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art Foundation / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art / © The artists
David MedallaHomage to the Paris Commune – Montmartre Paris 2013
Not Currently on Display
Homage to the Paris Commune – Montmartre Paris is an example of David Medalla’s impromptu performances and actions, performed either solo or with collaborators, and photographed by Medalla’s close collaborator and partner, Adam Nankervis.
Describing the performances as ‘micro-dramas and poetic plays’, Medalla combined props with his own artworks, wearing distinctive clothing sourced from second-hand shops and fragile masks constructed from paper. These simple interventions illustrate the close relationship between play and whimsy, free association and the cultivation of the imagination that were a fundamental aspect of the artist’s rich and varied work.
This particular image is an homage to the eccentric poet Arthur Rimbaud and his part in the radical Parisian uprising of 1871 when the Prussians entered Paris. It also responds to a very vivid image from Medalla’s childhood, which alongside others derived from different travel experiences, laid the foundations for what would become his famous ‘Bubble Machines’.
David Medalla is an important figure in the development of installation, kinetic and participatory art. His practice deconstructs the idea of sculpture as solid, timeless and monumental by creating objects and situations that are unrepeatable and continuously changing.
In 1963, Medalla began to produce what would become his signature works: ‘Bubble Machines’, or auto-creative sculptures. He describes these machines as way to give ‘tangible form to invisible forces . . . to find a model which would show the transformation of matter into energy’.1 Medalla’s first bubble machines were generated from plinth-like boxes, but later versions feature clear plexiglass tubes.
Endnotes:
1. Interview with David Medalla by Rasheed Araeen, 1979, quoted in Guy Brett, Exploding Galaxies: The Art of David Medalla. Kala Press, London, 1995, p.52.