{"id":3299,"date":"2025-04-07T17:07:46","date_gmt":"2025-04-07T17:07:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/2025\/04\/07\/exhibition-review-noah-davis-at-barbican-art-gallery-in-london\/"},"modified":"2025-04-07T17:08:02","modified_gmt":"2025-04-07T17:08:02","slug":"exhibition-review-noah-davis-at-barbican-art-gallery-in-london","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/2025\/04\/07\/exhibition-review-noah-davis-at-barbican-art-gallery-in-london\/","title":{"rendered":"Exhibition Review: \u201cNoah Davis\u201d at Barbican Art Gallery in London"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Noah Davis, 1975<\/em> (8), 2013. Photo: Kerry McFate \u00a9 The Estate of Noah Davis, Courtesy The Estate of Noah Davis and David Zwirner<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It wasn\u2019t the California wildfires that closed down the Underground Museum in Los Angeles; it was grief. In a heartbreaking announcement posted on the museum\u2019s website this past January, the artist Karon Davis, Noah Davis\u2019 wife, explained why her family closed the art space<\/a> the couple founded in 2012. Her husband passed away from cancer in 2015, Karon\u2019s note explained, and the family needed more time to deal with their pain. The Underground Museum, already sorely missed, was a realization of Noah Davis<\/a>\u2019 intent. The U.K.\u2019s first retrospective of his artwork, titled simply \u201cNoah Davis\u201d at London\u2019s Barbican Art Gallery, provides a moving insight into the workings of both intent and institution.<\/p>\n

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A charming film in the exhibition space shows Davis (b. 1983 in Seattle) telling an interviewer how he was born to paint. Following a move to Los Angeles in 2004 after dropping out of New York\u2019s Cooper Union School of Art, his breakthrough as an artist came four years later when long-time supporter and gallery director Lindsay Charlwood<\/a> included three of his paintings in a group exhibition. Davis was going through a brief dalliance with abstract painting, and there\u2019s a room dedicated to that period\u2014although only one painting survives: a canvas of flat color. His time with abstraction done, Davis returned to the kind of haunting work characterized by 2007\u2019s 40 Acres and a Unicorn<\/i>. A wry comment on the U.S. government\u2019s promise of land and a mule to slaves granted their freedom in 1865, replacing the paltry and patronizingly-mooted farm animal incentive with a unicorn sums up the quiet irony and elegance in Davis\u2019s paintings.<\/p>\n

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SEE ALSO: L.A. Museums Are Rethinking the Rules of Art Ownership. Will Others Follow? <\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The room next door is dedicated to the Underground Museum. Noah and Karon Davis<\/a> founded the art space in the working-class Arlington Heights district in L.A. with the intention of making high-quality art more accessible to the largely Black and Latinx local community. \u201cI like the idea of bringing a high-end gallery into a place that has no cultural outlets within walking distance,\u201d Noah Davis told Art In America<\/a> in 2013. However, when the pair approached museums and galleries to ask about borrowing artwork to exhibit in the new space, the response was almost overwhelmingly negative. So they got to work, and an exhibition, \u201cImitation of Wealth,\u201d presented perfect replicas of artwork by the likes of Jeff Koons<\/a>, Dan Flavin<\/a> and Robert Smithson<\/a>. William Kentridge<\/a> was more than happy to contribute to the Underground Museum (Kentridge\u2019s film Journey to the Moon <\/i>is at the Barbican, playing on a loop) and after he got the nod from Kentridge in 2014, Davis commented how ironic\u2014that word again\u2014it was that the first artist to agree to exhibit in a museum created by Black artists was white.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

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Noah Davis\u2019 1975<\/em> series is part of the Barbican Art Gallery\u2019s survey of the artist\u2019s work. \u00a9 Jemima Yong Barbican Art Gallery<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Davis was fascinated by mysticism, and his Gods of the Afterlife<\/i> 2009 series of paintings reflects his interest in ancient Egyptian religion and mythology. Isis<\/i> shows a young girl in a dancer\u2019s outfit, delicately lifting her golden wings. Interpreted from a photograph, the figure wrapped in mummy-esque pajamas in 1984<\/i> is his wife as a six-year-old child. The economy of the painter\u2019s limited palette here gives his artwork an elusive feeling. The colors used are muted throughout, and Davis didn\u2019t concern himself with details like facial features or the faithful depiction of environments. Instead, paint drips and lollops across his canvases, fading in and out like memories.<\/p>\n

Davis\u2019s imagination flicked between paradigms of idealism and society\u2019s hard truths. His 2012 Savage Wilds<\/i> paintings came from American daytime television\u2019s racist and misogynistic representations of Black people. He would pause recordings of shows like The Jerry Springer Show<\/i> and Judge Judy<\/i> and paint what he saw in the frozen frames. The figures he produced are vague, often overweight and somehow hapless.<\/p>\n

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Noah Davis, You Are\u2026.<\/em>, 2012; from the Savage Wilds series. \u00a9 The Estate of Noah Davis, Courtesy The Estate of Noah Davis and David Zwirner<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

For his 2013 project\u2014in which all pieces are entitled 1975<\/i>\u2014Davis made paintings based on more family photos. At odds with the synthesized portrayals of folk in Savage Wilds<\/i>, 1975<\/i> is an archive of everyday life that hums with intimacy as people swim, play and go about their business.<\/p>\n

The Pueblo del Rio<\/i> paintings from the following year are based on the 1941 design for a Los Angeles housing project for Black defense workers. Davis imagined how the project could have been, and the artworks embody a calm utopia, replete with white-gloved ballet dancers, musicians and wonderous public sculptures. In reality, the housing project deteriorated into one of L.A.\u2019s most violent and impoverished districts. Around the corner, Seventy Works <\/i>is a series of 2D mixed media pieces Davis made while undergoing chemotherapy. Some were sold to help his family cover the costs of his medical treatment, while others were given as gifts to friends.<\/p>\n

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Noah Davis, Pueblo del Rio Arabesque<\/em>, 2014. Photo: Kerry McFate \u00a9 The Estate of Noah Davis, Courtesy The Estate of Noah Davis and David Zwirner<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Even as the survey in London is comprehensive, there is so much left unsaid in Noah Davis\u2019 work. Untitled<\/i> from 2015 was painted three months before he died. A woman and girl lie asleep on a couch, and we view them through an open door. Are we intruding? Are they okay? The effect is disconcerting, and for an artwork to have this kind of impact is a reflection of Davis\u2019s remarkable gift for beginning a story but leaving the plot unresolved. As with the best societal narrators, Davis showed without telling, depicting scenarios that are both troubling and enthralling.<\/p>\n

Noah Davis was just thirty-two when he died. We can only hope that his family finds peace and that when they are ready, the Underground Museum will reopen once again.<\/p>\n

Noah Davis<\/b><\/a>\u2018 largest survey to date is on view at the Barbican Centre in London through May 11, 2025. Advanced booking is recommended.<\/b><\/p>\n

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Noah Davis, Isis<\/em>, 2009. Photo: Kerry McFate \u00a9 The Estate of Noah Davis, Courtesy The Estate of Noah Davis and David Zwirner<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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