David Medalla
Encyclopedia
David Medalla is a Filipino
international artist. His work ranges from sculpture
and kinetic art
to painting, installation
and performance art
. He lives and works in London
, New York
and Paris
.
Medalla was born in Manila
, the Philippines
, in 1942. At the age of 12 he was admitted at Columbia University
in New York upon the recommendation of American poet Mark van Doren
and studied ancient Greek drama with Moses Hadas
, modern drama with Eric Bentley
, modern literature with Lionel Trilling
, modern philosophy with John Randall
and attended the poetry workshops of Leonie Adams
.
In the late 1950s he returned to Manila and met Jaime Gil de Biedma
(the Catalan poet) and the painter Fernando Zóbel de Ayala
, who became the earliest patrons of his art. In 1960s Paris, the French philosopher Gaston Bachelard
introduced his performance 'Brother of Isidora' at the Academy of Raymond Duncan
, later, Louis Aragon
would introduce another performance and finally, Marcel Duchamp
honoured him with a 'medallic' object.
His work was included in Harald Szeemann
's exhibition 'Weiss auf Weiss' (1966) and 'Live in Your Head: When Attitudes Become Form' (1969) and in the DOCUMENTA 5 exhibition in 1972 in Kassel.
In the early 1960s he moved to the United Kingdom
and co-founded the Signals Gallery in London in 1964, which presented international kinetic art. He was editor of the Signals news bulletin from 1964 to 1966. In 1967 he initiated the Exploding Galaxy, an international confluence of multi-media artists, significant in hippie/counterculture circles, particularly the UFO Club
and Arts Lab
. From 1974 - 1977 he was chairman of Artists for Democracy, an organisation dedicated to 'giving material and cultural support to liberation movements worldwide' and director of the Fitzrovia Cultural Centre in London.
In New York, in 1994, he founded the Mondrian Fan Club with Adam Nankervis as vice-president.
Between 1 January 1995 and 14 February 1995 David Medalla rented a space at 55 Gee Street London, in which he lived and exhibited. He exhibited seven new versions of his biokinetic constructions of the sixties (bubble machines; and a monumental sand machine). These machines were constructed after Medalla's original designs, by the English artist Dan Chadwick. The exhibition also featured large-scale prints of his New York 'Mondian Events' with Adam Nankervis, and five large oil paintings on canvas created by David Medalla in situ at 55 Gee Street. Another important feature was a monumental animated neon relief entitled 'Kinetic Mudras for Piet Mondrian
' constructed by Frances Basham using argon and neon lighting
after Medalla's original idea and designs.
Medalla also invited artists to perform at the space.
David Medalla has lectured at the Sorbonne
, the École des Beaux-Arts
in Paris, the Museum of Modern Art
of New York, Silliman University
and the University of the Philippines
, the Universities of Amsterdam and Utrecht, the New York Public Library, Simon Fraser University
in Vancouver, Canada, the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge
, Canterbury, Warwick and Southampton in England, the Slade art school, St. Martin's
.
He was the founder and director of the London Biennale in 1998, a “do-it-yourself” free arts festival, which hosts work by Mai Ghoussoub
, Mark McGowan, Deej Fabyc
, Marko Stepanov, Adam Nankervis, James Moores, Dimitri Launder
, Fritz Stolberg, Salih Kayra, and many others.
David Medalla has won awards from the New York Foundation for the Arts and the Jerome Foundation of America.
Filipino people
The Filipino people or Filipinos are an Austronesian ethnic group native to the islands of the Philippines. There are about 92 million Filipinos in the Philippines, and about 11 million living outside the Philippines ....
international artist. His work ranges from sculpture
Sculpture
Sculpture is three-dimensional artwork created by shaping or combining hard materials—typically stone such as marble—or metal, glass, or wood. Softer materials can also be used, such as clay, textiles, plastics, polymers and softer metals...
and kinetic art
Kinetic art
Kinetic art is art that contains moving parts or depends on motion for its effect. The moving parts are generally powered by wind, a motor or the observer. Kinetic art encompasses a wide variety of overlapping techniques and styles.-Kinetic sculpture:...
to painting, installation
Installation art
Installation art describes an artistic genre of three-dimensional works that are often site-specific and designed to transform the perception of a space. Generally, the term is applied to interior spaces, whereas exterior interventions are often called Land art; however, the boundaries between...
and performance art
Performance art
In art, performance art is a performance presented to an audience, traditionally interdisciplinary. Performance may be either scripted or unscripted, random or carefully orchestrated; spontaneous or otherwise carefully planned with or without audience participation. The performance can be live or...
. He lives and works in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, New York
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
and Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
.
Medalla was born in Manila
Manila
Manila is the capital of the Philippines. It is one of the sixteen cities forming Metro Manila.Manila is located on the eastern shores of Manila Bay and is bordered by Navotas and Caloocan to the north, Quezon City to the northeast, San Juan and Mandaluyong to the east, Makati on the southeast,...
, the Philippines
Philippines
The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...
, in 1942. At the age of 12 he was admitted at Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
in New York upon the recommendation of American poet Mark van Doren
Mark Van Doren
Mark Van Doren was an American poet, writer and a critic, apart from being a scholar and a professor of English at Columbia University for nearly 40 years, where he inspired a generation of influential writers and thinkers including Thomas Merton, Robert Lax, John Berryman, and Beat Generation...
and studied ancient Greek drama with Moses Hadas
Moses Hadas
Moses Hadas was an American teacher, one of the leading classical scholars of the twentieth century, and a translator of numerous works....
, modern drama with Eric Bentley
Eric Bentley
Eric Bentley is a critic, playwright, singer, editor and translator. He became an American citizen in 1948, and currently lives in New York City...
, modern literature with Lionel Trilling
Lionel Trilling
Lionel Trilling was an American literary critic, author, and teacher. With wife Diana Trilling, he was a member of the New York Intellectuals and contributor to the Partisan Review. Although he did not establish a school of literary criticism, he is one of the leading U.S...
, modern philosophy with John Randall
John Randall
John Randall is the name of:*John Randall , mayor of Annapolis, Maryland and colonel in the American Revolution*Sir John Randall , British physicist, developer of the cavity magnetron...
and attended the poetry workshops of Leonie Adams
Léonie Adams
Léonie Fuller Adams was an American poet. She was appointed the seventh Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1948.-Biography:...
.
In the late 1950s he returned to Manila and met Jaime Gil de Biedma
Jaime Gil de Biedma
Jaime Gil de Biedma y Alba was a Spanish post-Civil War poet.He was born in Nava de la Asunción on November 13, 1929. He stopped writing poetry some ten years before his death...
(the Catalan poet) and the painter Fernando Zóbel de Ayala
Fernando Zóbel de Ayala y Montojo
Fernando Zóbel de Ayala y Montojo , also known as Fernando Zóbel y Montojo, Fernando M. Zóbel and sometimes as Fernando M...
, who became the earliest patrons of his art. In 1960s Paris, the French philosopher Gaston Bachelard
Gaston Bachelard
Gaston Bachelard was a French philosopher. He made contributions in the fields of poetics and the philosophy of science. To the latter he introduced the concepts of epistemological obstacle and epistemological break...
introduced his performance 'Brother of Isidora' at the Academy of Raymond Duncan
Raymond Duncan
Raymond Duncan was an American dancer, artist, poet, craftsman, and philosopher, and brother of dancer Isadora Duncan.-Biography:...
, later, Louis Aragon
Louis Aragon
Louis Aragon , was a French poet, novelist and editor, a long-time member of the Communist Party and a member of the Académie Goncourt.- Early life :...
would introduce another performance and finally, Marcel Duchamp
Marcel Duchamp
Marcel Duchamp was a French artist whose work is most often associated with the Dadaist and Surrealist movements. Considered by some to be one of the most important artists of the 20th century, Duchamp's output influenced the development of post-World War I Western art...
honoured him with a 'medallic' object.
His work was included in Harald Szeemann
Harald Szeemann
Harald Szeemann was a Swiss curator and art historian.-Life:Szeemann was born in Bern. He studied art history, archaeology and journalism in Bern and Paris, and in 1956 he began working as an actor, stage designer and painter, as well as doing one-man shows. He started creating exhibitions in 1957...
's exhibition 'Weiss auf Weiss' (1966) and 'Live in Your Head: When Attitudes Become Form' (1969) and in the DOCUMENTA 5 exhibition in 1972 in Kassel.
In the early 1960s he moved to the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
and co-founded the Signals Gallery in London in 1964, which presented international kinetic art. He was editor of the Signals news bulletin from 1964 to 1966. In 1967 he initiated the Exploding Galaxy, an international confluence of multi-media artists, significant in hippie/counterculture circles, particularly the UFO Club
UFO Club
The UFO Club was a famous but shortlived UK underground club in London during the 1960s, venue of performances by many of the top bands of the day.-History:...
and Arts Lab
Arts Lab
The Arts Lab was an alternative arts centre, founded in 1967 by Jim Haynes at 182 Drury Lane. Although only active for two years, it was influential in inspiring many similar centres in the UK and continental Europe, including the expanded I.C.A...
. From 1974 - 1977 he was chairman of Artists for Democracy, an organisation dedicated to 'giving material and cultural support to liberation movements worldwide' and director of the Fitzrovia Cultural Centre in London.
In New York, in 1994, he founded the Mondrian Fan Club with Adam Nankervis as vice-president.
Between 1 January 1995 and 14 February 1995 David Medalla rented a space at 55 Gee Street London, in which he lived and exhibited. He exhibited seven new versions of his biokinetic constructions of the sixties (bubble machines; and a monumental sand machine). These machines were constructed after Medalla's original designs, by the English artist Dan Chadwick. The exhibition also featured large-scale prints of his New York 'Mondian Events' with Adam Nankervis, and five large oil paintings on canvas created by David Medalla in situ at 55 Gee Street. Another important feature was a monumental animated neon relief entitled 'Kinetic Mudras for Piet Mondrian
Piet Mondrian
Pieter Cornelis "Piet" Mondriaan, after 1906 Mondrian , was a Dutch painter.He was an important contributor to the De Stijl art movement and group, which was founded by Theo van Doesburg. He evolved a non-representational form which he termed Neo-Plasticism...
' constructed by Frances Basham using argon and neon lighting
Neon lighting
Neon lighting is created by brightly glowing, electrified glass tubes or bulbs that contain rarefied neon or other gases. Georges Claude, a French engineer and inventor, presented neon tube lighting in essentially its modern form at the Paris Motor Show from December 3–18, 1910...
after Medalla's original idea and designs.
Medalla also invited artists to perform at the space.
David Medalla has lectured at the Sorbonne
Sorbonne
The Sorbonne is an edifice of the Latin Quarter, in Paris, France, which has been the historical house of the former University of Paris...
, the École des Beaux-Arts
École des Beaux-Arts
École des Beaux-Arts refers to a number of influential art schools in France. The most famous is the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, now located on the left bank in Paris, across the Seine from the Louvre, in the 6th arrondissement. The school has a history spanning more than 350 years,...
in Paris, the Museum of Modern Art
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...
of New York, Silliman University
Silliman University
Silliman University is a private research university located in Dumaguete, Philippines. Established in 1901 as Silliman Institute by the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions, it was the first American private school to be founded in the country. The University is named after Dr...
and the University of the Philippines
University of the Philippines
The ' is the national university of the Philippines. Founded in 1908 through Act No...
, the Universities of Amsterdam and Utrecht, the New York Public Library, Simon Fraser University
Simon Fraser University
Simon Fraser University is a Canadian public research university in British Columbia with its main campus on Burnaby Mountain in Burnaby, and satellite campuses in Vancouver and Surrey. The main campus in Burnaby, located from downtown Vancouver, was established in 1965 and has more than 34,000...
in Vancouver, Canada, the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge
University of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...
, Canterbury, Warwick and Southampton in England, the Slade art school, St. Martin's
Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design
Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design is a constituent college of the University of the Arts London. The school has an outstanding international reputation, and is considered one of the world's leading art and design institutions...
.
He was the founder and director of the London Biennale in 1998, a “do-it-yourself” free arts festival, which hosts work by Mai Ghoussoub
Mai Ghoussoub
Mai Ghoussoub was a Lebanese writer, artist, publisher and human rights activist. She was the co-founder of the Saqi bookshop and publishing house.-Life:...
, Mark McGowan, Deej Fabyc
Deej Fabyc
Deej Fabyc is an Australian/British artist who works with what she calls a "forenzic biographical" type of art, with works in performance, performance installation, combined with drawing, video, photography and objects. Her work takes up the personal is political as read and does not differentiate...
, Marko Stepanov, Adam Nankervis, James Moores, Dimitri Launder
Dimitri Launder
Dimitri Launder is a UK-based artist, notable for his unique participatory photographic practice and his creation and construction of cameras. He has also used pinhole technology to create photographic images in a variety of pedagogic contexts. He is an alumnus of Camberwell College of Arts and...
, Fritz Stolberg, Salih Kayra, and many others.
David Medalla has won awards from the New York Foundation for the Arts and the Jerome Foundation of America.