Davide Balula

Davide BalulaBorn in 1978 in Annecy, France. Lives and works in Paris, France.http://davide.balula.free.frhttp://www.lappareil.com

Education

2004 DNSEP, École Nationale Supérieure d’Arts de Paris-Cergy, France2002 DNAP, École Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs de Strasbourg, France

Solo Exhibitions

2009 American Wall Nut, Fake Estate Gallery, NY, USAThe Doors behind the darts, Envoy Gallery, NY, USA

2008 Le Lac, le mensonge, Confort Moderne, Poitiers, France (catalogue)2007 De la place pour le sable, galerie frank elbaz, Paris, France

Tonspur 22, Museums Quartier Wien, Vienna, AustriaSirène du Mississipi, Musée de l'Objet, Blois & Ecole des Beaux Arts de Châteauroux &Bourges, FranceSirène du Mississipi, Project Room, CCC, Tours, FranceWhite Hey Mister Wave !, SMP, Marseille, France

2005 Low Fidelity, Le Confort Moderne, Poitiers, France

Group Exhibitions and Performances (selection)

2009 Return to Function, MMoCA, Madison, USA, curated by Jane SimonBuilder Vor Boatin, Silver Shed, NY, USA, curated by Dirk Skreber008. Collections, nouvelles connexions, Frac Poitou-Charentes, Angoulême, France

2008 The Possibility of an Island, MOCA, Miami, USAJe reviendrai, nouvel accrochage permanent du Mac/Val, Vitry-sur-Seine, FranceUovo open Office, Berlin, GermanyNuit Rouge, CCC, Tours, FranceAntidote, Galerie des Galeries, Galeries Lafayette, Paris, FranceVolume(s), Casino Luxembourg – Forum d’art contemporain, LuxembourgThe Sound Of Art, TONSPUR_expanded at Freiraum/quartier21 and in the public space atMuseumsQuartier, Vienna, Austria, curated by Georg Weckwerth

2007 The Sound of Music, Broelmuseum, Courtrai, BelgiumInventaire 2, MacVal, Vitry-sur-Seine, FranceDu machinique et du vivant, La Réserve, Pacy-sur-Eure, France, curated by Régis DurandScience Fictions, Czarna Gallery, Poland, curated by Severin DünserL’amorce ou la partition des possibles (sculptural bootlegs and remixed artworks), LIA, GrenobleAnzengruber Biennale, Caté Anzengruber, Vienna, AustriaThe lab, Into position, Vienna, Austria

The Potential Meanings of Sound, Seoul, KoreaThe ubiquitus aural SFX, Total Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul, KoreaSongwon Art Center, Seoul, KoreaLogiques du rêve éveillé, Instants Chavirés, Montreuil, France, curated by Maëlle DaultOff Modern, La Station, Nice, FranceBalula & Contador meet Coffin, Green House, Palais de Tokyo, ParisSection Amour, Centre National d’Art Contemporain, Le Magasin, Grenoble, France360, Transparent, ARC/MAMVP, Musée d’Art Moderne de la ville de Paris, France360, Translucent, CCC, Centre de Création Contemporaine, Tours, France

2006 This Is Not For You, Sculptural Discourses, Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary, ViennaNuit Blanche, Section Amour Residency, Amiens, FranceSection Amour, Le Magasin, Grenoble, FranceL’Appareil : Inventaire de la Collection, Mac/Val, Vitry-sur-Seine, FranceRe-shuffle : Notions of an Itinerant Museum, Art in General, New York, USADeaf, From the Visible to the Audible, galerie frank elbaz, Paris, FranceAccords excentriques, Domaine Départemental de Chamarande, France… D’où l’écoute prend forme, Centre d’Art Passerelle, Brest, FranceFree Hand, Second Hand, Galerie du Jour Agnès b., Paris, FranceThe Wrinkle Party, W139, Amsterdam, HollandCinema muet en concert : Metamorphoses, Auditorium du Louvre, Paris, FranceGlobal Tour, W139, Amsterdam, Holland

2005 Shobus-Mobium, Japan : Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, Gifu, Yamaguchi, Daizaifu, Beppu, Nagoya…J’en rêve, Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemporain, Paris, FranceI still believe in miracles, Musée d’art moderne de la Ville de Paris, FranceMots d’ordre, Mots de passe, Espace Paul Ricard, Paris, FrancePopisme, École Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Tours, FranceAmour notices, Consortium, Amsterdam, HollandInhabituel, Centre culturel Français, Milan, Italy

2004 Captain Subzero in the Spiral Peninsul, Glassbox, Paris, FranceOccupations, Scène Nationale de Cergy-Pontoise, FranceMon Choix, La Vitrine, Paris, FranceAfter Hours, Glassbox & Pnut, Paris, FranceStudy of a Pigeon Career, SKC, Belgrade, SerbiaEcoute, Atelier des enfants, Centre Pompidou, Paris, FranceHeavy Bricks, Wall of Sound & Mobile Home for a Spiral Tiger Device Installation, LePlateau-Frac Île-de-France (collaboration with Palais de Tokyo and Centre Pompidou)Avril.dot, Confluences, Paris, FranceEspace Daylight, La Vitrine, Paris, FranceGanattack, Vooruit Art Center, Gent, Belgium

2003 Betrug, Loop Gallery, Berlin, Germany

Davide Balula American Wall Nut2009Floorboard, wall, paintingVariable dimensionsUnique

View of the exhibition American Wall Nut, Fake Estate, 2009, New York, USA©Tom Powel Imaging

Davide Balula Mirrors, before the Remote controlled Water2008Raw cut mirrors, oak wood70 x 70 x 70 cmEdition of 2

Davide BalulaCan’t Remember The Speed Of The Blast2007Firecrackers, frameworkVariable dimensions2 ex.© Pierre Antoine

20'000 firecrackers hung on a mic stand explode at the same. Some residue of the red paper isleft on the ground. A high frequency (16KHz) simulates an artificial tinnitus.

Davide BalulaView of the exhibition Le Lac, le mensonge, Le Confort Moderne, May 16th – August 31st, 2008,Poitiers, France© Pierre Antoine

Davide BalulaView of the exhibition Le Lac, le mensonge, Le Confort Moderne, May 16th – August 31st, 2008,Poitiers, France© Pierre Antoine

Davide BalulaFollow Venice2008Double-sided mirror, stand200 x 150 cm2 ex.© Pierre Antoine

Folding screen which allows to see through by forming a cubist vision recomposed by severalpoints of view, like a periscope.

Davide BalulaBruit Blanc2007Floor paint, jars of paint, instructionsVariable dimensions

Paint covering the floor of the exhibition space

Davide BalulaCocktail Series : Ice Blows (Black)2007Water, ice, aromas (pear, ginger, Tabasco), CO2 crystals wrapped in cocoa butter, foodcoloringVariable dimensions

Loud explosive drink.

Davide BalulaView of the exhibition De la place pour le sable, galerie frank elbaz, June 2d – July 28th, 2007,Paris, France

Davide BalulaView of the exhibition De la place pour le sable, galerie frank elbaz, June 2d – July 28th, 2007,Paris, France

Davide BalulaLe Métronome (Hourglass)2007Glasswork, neon, burnt ink50 x 60 x 30 cm2 ex.

Two spiraled neon lights are dipped in a vase filled with black ink. The neon lights arealternately illuminated at a two-beat per minute frequency.

Davide BalulaSans titre (Moulage d’une trompette)2007Neon14 x 110 cm2 ex.

Sculpture in neon: the tube of the trumpet is prolonged on both sides by two lines of lightwhich represent breath.

Davide BalulaStatic Power Series: The Wooden Pause2007Wooden transport box, foam, mecanics90 x 130 x 90 cm2 ex.© Pierre Antoine

Transport box filled with protection particles. Silently, this sculpture puts into motion themoments of inactivity of pieces in storage. The polystyrene surface allows us to perceive slowand irregular movements.

Davide BalulaHeartbeat Exciter (Stimulateur cardiaque)2006Farmed stinging nettles, amplifier, turntable, vinyl record, base (pedestal), cablesVariable dimensions2 ex.

Recordings of human heartbeat at different speeds sending magnetic charges into the nettles.The record is made of multiple closed grooves. Wear and tear of the support systems. Evolutionand aging of the vegetable sculpture.Original soundtrack : «Heartbeat exciter», 4’29’’

Davide BalulaThe Underwater Tones. The Ice Blows2007Series of 9 digital prints on cotton paper43 x 50 cm each2 ex.

Sculpture on ice retaking the form of a splash but without a shockwave. The form changes inrelation to the melting of the ice. Slow explosion.

Davide BalulaDépendance #2 (Troubles)2007System of underwater smoke explosions, DMX controller, computer, internet connection,aquariums, water, ink, microphone, aquatic plants, cables and plumbing system

Exhibition view, Sirène du Mississippi, Musée de l’objet, Blois, 2007

Installation which interprets the history of visits to the website. The installation interprets thearchives of the website www.dependance-zero.ecm4.net by replaying some underwater-explosions.

Davide Balula360 Transparent2006Soundtrack : 1h20min loop, electric guitar, amplifier, tuner, wires, microphone stand, chairVariable dimensions2 ex.

Phantom concert of Davide Balula. Instrumental version where each song represents anartwork. The set thus represents a sort of monographic exhibition but without the materialpresence of the works.

Davide BalulaEcho Kicked Drum Murd Dekcik Oche2006Modified drum kick, mirror, wheels100 x 80 x 150 cm2 ex.

The skin of the big orchestra case is replaced with mirrors. One side shows the traces of akick. One mirror is shattered.

Davide BalulaConcrete Step Memory Recorder2005-…Mobile sculpture and sound production unit: Samsonite modified suitcase, digital registrationsystem, microphone, panel meters, amplification system, loud speakers, battery, transformer47 x 65 x 24 cm2 ex.

Mobile sculpture. Black box for the pedestrian. Archiving of the sound environment andpossibility of sound diffusion in different spaces.

Davide BalulaConcrete Step Memory Recorder

« Concrete Step Memory Recorder » is a sonic sculpture that is both functional and mobile. Itis derived from objects that flirt with the everyday, displacement, and memory: a suitcase andblack box used in flight (also called flight data recorder).It allows for the recording and playback of sounds during movement, while also retaining theacoustic space of a suitcase. This project investigates the capability of reproducible privatememory.

The visual and documentary inscription of the suitcase is then made the relay of our mobile,autonomous and wild shape which takes mainly life only within the reality.

Memory on Replay,3’08’’2005Original SoundtrackMusic and words by Davide BalulaFeat. King Q4 on drums and Lola Motelli on suitcase carresses

Davide BalulaUrtica2004Nettle, neon, mic standVariable dimensions2 ex.

Davide BalulaAirport2004Interactive installation: fan, motorcycle equipment, electronics, wallpainting270 x 160 x 30 cm2 ex.

Hand throttle allows us to reproduce the feeling of speed while resting immobile.

in www.nytimes.com11/04/09 16:27Art in Review - New York Times

Page 1 sur 1http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A07E1DB153AF930A35757C0A96F9C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=print

April 3, 2009

Art in Review

By HOLLAND COTTER

DAVIDE BALULA

'American Wall Nut'

Fake Estate

526 West 26th Street, Chelsea

Through Saturday

Fake Estate, opened by Julia Trotta in 2007, may not be the smallest gallery in town, but itcertainly is minute, being confined to a former utility closet in a building that houses othergalleries of regulation size. And the young French artist Davide Balula makes good use of thespace in a solo show that consists of a single, succinct visual gesture that questions the solidityof architecture.

For the piece, titled ''American Wall Nut,'' Mr. Balula appears to have transposed two odd-shaped sections of the gallery's floor and wall. A double strip of what looks like plasterboardseems to be embedded in the floor, replacing pieces of hardwood flooring of the same size thatare affixed to the wall.

The multitasking Mr. Balula is probably best known as a composer of music that mingles anddigitally manipulates both performed and found sound. The result are melodies, some quitelovely, made up interventions, and a species of music so hybrid that it can be defined by no onecategory or source. ''American Wall Nut,'' organized by the independent curator Beatrice Gross,is a kind of concrete version of this method, gently scrambling the optical elements that wedepend on to establish coordinates like ''up'' and ''down'' in enclosed space.

Working on a monumental scale the artist Gordon Matta-Clark, from whose work the gallerytakes its name, similarly redefined architecture in the 1970s, using massive slicings andexcisions to suggest, among other things, the instability of the concept of property and theephemerality of what we call real estate. Mr. Balula delivers something like the same messagein a nutshell. HOLLAND COTTER

Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company Home Privacy Policy Search Corrections XML Help Contact Us Work for Us Back to Top

in www.nytimes.com, March 25th, 2009

in www.artforum.com, March 19th, 2009 19/03/09 14:43artforum.com / critics' picks

Page 1 sur 1http://www.artforum.com/picks/id=22276&view=print

Davide BalulaFAKE ESTATE526 W. 26th St. #502AFebruary 26–April 4

Davide Balula’s installation, in a gallery that used to be a storage closet, isthe simplest of arrangements: a wooden floor with two long, narrow, andasymmetrical white shapes laid into it parquet-style, with two identicalwooden shapes mounted flat on the wall above it. The work is in every wayinterstitial, hovering between dimensions in a reclaimed space. Like manyseemingly simple works, it reverberates with echoes, from decorative artsto Minimalism and Conceptual art, from esoteric diagrams to patterns oflight on the floor.

The most present ghost is that of Gordon Matta-Clark, whose Reality

Properties: Fake Estates, 1973–74, gives the storage-closet gallery itsname. The shapes on the wall could easily be the oddly shaped parcels ofNew York City land that Matta-Clark bought for that project; the feeling oflight shining through a hole in a wall is reminiscent of his grand andmonumental Day’s End, 1975. That Balula is all tidied up and containedwhere Matta-Clark was rough and immediate honors a kind of site andnon-site relationship between the works of the two artists, while updating itfor an era in which much less New York property is available for guerillasite-specific experimentation. Immense and awe-inspiring rose windowsmay no longer be possible, but Balula’s modest proposal has an odd andpersistent little resonance.

— Emily Hall

Davide Balula, American Wall

Nut, 2009, floorboard, wall, paint.Installation view.

All rights reserved. artforum.com is a registered trademark of Artforum International Magazine, New York, NY

Béatrice Gross, “Davide Balula”, in French Connection, 88 artistes contemporains, 88 critiques d’art, éditions Black Jack, Montreuil, 2008, pp. 72-78

Davide BalulaUn air de fête2004Modified turntable, wire, ball, vinyl disc, helium50 x 50 x 100 cm

The balloon inflated with helium raises the arm of the turntable. The record turns but can’t beplayed.

Davide Balula : Disturbances in Space-Time-Matter

Essay by Christine Macelpublished in Stomach Rainbow, Monographik editions, 2008

Endowed with an impressive capacity for enquiry, Davide Balula is interested intechnology, biochemical and physical processes and essentially all phenomena at the

limits of reason. Tinnitus, plants, insects or sects, he digs deep into these subjects as a

starting point to his work in a documentary practice which has become the fertiliser ofhis imagination.

His “disturbing” works play with normative systems and inverse the usual relationshipsbetween elements. In this way, they put knowledge and the results of perception into

perspective. Davide Balula uses the progress of science in order to produce newknowledge of the world, knowledge with neither nostalgia nor regret for the period of

utopiansism. Dependant on an ironic relativism, playing with the possibility of disturbing

the rules of the game, he makes unexpected connections as in his work “Troubles”(Disturbances), a pigment imprint from a website which degenerates after each visit.

The question which threads across his entire practice is the following: does the world

really exist as we describe it? Some, in the twentieth century, believed they had

achieved this. The eruption of quantum theory at the beginning of the twentieth centuryby physicists such as Max Planck and Niels Bohr changed the deal: the atomic bomb,

the computer and the laser revolution were to follow. After this, it was thought that a

unified model could fuse Einstein’s general relativity with quantum mechanics. StephenHawkins announced this in the eighties, and maintained this until 2004, when he

publicly recognised his powerlessness. Meanwhile many questions have arisen. Overthe past thirty years, the questioning of the notion of time was a major event in the

scientific field. Certain scientists even came up with the idea of the non-temporality or

the non-locality of the real. The scientist Brian Greene popularised these discoveries,although his string theory never found an application which proved the efficiency of its

unification system of general relativity and quantum mechanics. He belongs to thosewho question the possibility of a clear idea of the real. Davide Balula plunged into this

gap, with the naturalness of those who have grown up with technological progress,

facing these uncertainties without anxiety, without speculating on the conclusions ofquantum mechanics in terms of the nature of the real, but playing with the potential

aesthetics of current ignorance. He is indeed part of that generation of artists born atthe end of the seventies, active in the years 2000, who live with extreme technological

knowledge as well as a veiling of the real and with the necessity for a new Copernicus

to get us out of this mess. In short, he belongs to a new era, where the question is no

longer that of the subject – disfigured or complete, but rather of the nature of realityitself. In Davide Balula’s work the subject is above all the perceiving subject, the one

who experiments without psychologism. The core of his practice resides in the constantquestioning of the limits of the real.

This exploration takes place via processes of conversion, transfer, translation,interconnection, circulation between different materials, physical and chemical elements

which provoke reactions, variations, and phenomena, that is to say, new data. The

operative model is that of science, drawn over to aesthetics and fiction.

Time, which today undergoes a serious reconsideration of its objective nature, is at theheart of his approach. Davide Balula enjoys stretching it, suspending and modelling it

like matter itself. He recreates its measure, making it variable and confusing it,

rendering its elastic nature visible at the core of the matter-space-time triad.

His small “Metronome” is, in this way, made up of neon spirals soaking in two vasesfilled with black ink. The neon lights shine alternately according to a frequency of two

beats a minute. Light translates the metronome’s accelerated rhythm in an ironic

condensation of the very bases of time measurement which is, according to the GeneralConference of Weight and Measure of 1987, deduced from the speed of light – time is

not in fact that old. His twelve modified clocks, “The Humours”, turn at different speeds,

without synchronisation, while “Atomic Clock Peninsula”, a piece in porcelain with anantenna and a radio transmitter, constitutes a scrambler of atomic time over a range of

fifty meters – while it is ironically quantum physics which allowed for the creation of thisantenna. Finally, the clock “Variable Time Peninsula” gives everyone the possibility of

regulating the speed of time.

Sometimes Davide Balula stops the passage of time and makes the instant last, while

translating it into a form other than the scientific. The paint pots left on a black paintedsurface (“White noise”) represent this frozen image or frozen time. Likewise, Davide

Balula photographs of suspended moments of underwater ice explosions, “The

Underwater tone”, “The Ice Blows”. The work consisted of releasing an ice sculptureinto water, taking the form of a splash but without a ripple. The form changes little by

little as the ice melts to create an exceptionally slow explosion. Making the moment last

by transposing it into a medium other than time, like sound - Davide Balula’s material ofpredilection - is the central concern of the installation “Can’t Remember the Speed of

the Blast”. Numerous crackers explode on theopening day of his exhibition. Only the residues of the explosion remain, the torn red

paper lying on the ground, and a sound, a synthetic tinnitus, an ultra high frequency

at the limits of auditory perception which makes the moment last. The moment is again

materialised by a sound volley in “Untitled (Cocktail Series)” an explosive drink,sonorous and consumable, made from crystals of CO2 coated in peanut butter.

Other works convert time into sound and also space. “The Endless Pace (Score)”, a

music score twenty four hours long, is performed by twelve violins arranged in a circle,

reproducing the mechanical wheels of a watch – the speed of a second is left to thejudgement of the musicians. Balula is also preparing a project for the edition of the

music score, which evokes an invisible clock via twelve loud speakers – each sound is

equal to a beat, copying the measure of time in space for the blind.

Hear, feel, see this time which cannot be defined. Such is one of Davide Balula’sconcerns, behind the apparent poetry of a practice which fixes itself no limits, neither in

its domains nor in its processes. His work is not experimental in the sense of the

practices of the sixties or seventies, but has integrated the polyphony of mediums fromthe very start, with the naturalness of a multiform practice.