A Pollinator of the Spirit

As a young boy growing up in Manila, David Medalla was equal parts precocious and articulate, developing his vernacular through poetry. As his rebellious streak kicked in, he made local headlines for sneaking onto the SS President Wilson, where he fell asleep on the ship before realizing it was headed for Hong Kong. Throughout his six-decade-long career, the late artist welcomed happenstance and impermanence. Now, the Filipino artist’s work is receiving a retrospective at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles. 

‍

This is the first major survey of the artist’s work in the United States since he passed away in 2020 at 82 years old. The exhibition features ephemera, paintings, art objects, and archival materials. Throughout his life, Medalla utilized performance to better understand the human spirit, an approach he developed during his time in London in the 1960s. His career spans painting, sculpture, performance, mixed-media, photography, and, later, experiments in kinetic art. At the heart of his practice was an intimate understanding of how to bring the right people together, including kinetically minded artists such as interdisciplinary artist Jesús Rafael Soto and sculptor Lygia Clark. 

At the Hammer, a portrait of Medalla comes into focus as an artist who was a pollinator of the spirit, one who put precedence on ephemeral experiences over institutional recognition. Early on, he founded two art spaces in London, Signals London and Exploding Gallery. At the same time, he developed his own lexicon and sculptural principles—most importantly “synoptic realism,” which drew from his interest in physics and a larger sense of collective duty within his artistic orbit.

‍

On view in “In Conversation with the Cosmos,” his series “Cloud Canyon,” 1961-2004, exemplifies this with sculptural pieces constructed from transparent tubes that ooze towers of bubbles. This kinetic sculpture replicates a living organism and reimagines the sculpture as an unfixed object. Multiple tubes filled with bubbling soap material act as a catalyst of energetic movement to move through the sculpture. Elsewhere, ephemera from Signals and detailed photographs of early iterations of “Cloud Canyons” come into view.  

Medalla’s process throughout the years of his late career projects is illustrated within the exhibition materials as well.  Perhaps his most notable piece is a series of participatory artworks called "A Stitch in Time", 1967-2017, which evolved from simple handkerchiefs Medalla gave to two of his ex-lovers as he said his goodbyes. The story goes that in 1967, Medalla encouraged them to decorate these offerings with embroidered poetry and mementos of their travels. Later, Medalla ran into a backpacker in Amsterdam who carried the original handkerchief with Medalla’s name stitched into the cloth.

‍

Inspired by the chain of messages left alongside his own, “A Stitch in Time” evolved through exhibitions at DOCUMENTA 5, Royal College of Art London, and the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris. The installation evolved throughout his career and bloomed into a site-specific work that was shown at the 57th annual Venice Biennale in 2017 with a large, draped canvas resembling a hammock and a series of spools strung just above. As the Biennale progressed, the canvas became heavy with the ephemera, trinkets, and letters stitched onto it. The installation allowed for participants to witness the act of building the work. These kinetic bonds that Medalla venerated are traced throughout the Hammer, across his relationships to performance, political action and sense of self. When viewed as a whole, the exhibition invites viewers to observe the cosmic webs that Medalla sought to create within his life and his artwork. 

‍

“David Medalla: In Conversation with the Cosmos” is on view at The Hammer Museum from June 9th, 2024 to September 15th, 2024 at 10899 Wilshire Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90024.