Eva Davidova “Global Mode Omnívoros” is a thoughtful digital art installation at Instituto Cervantes in Midtown East from Oct 6 – Nov 10, 2021. FREE nyork.cervantes.es 🇪🇸
Eva Davidova
For some reason, many Spanish artists are using digital technology to reimagine our shared future. Eva Davidova is one of these new media artists.
Davidova has an interesting vision. She is both very Spanish and very New York. Her work stretches imagery into paradox in ways that make you think. Living in New York City stretches your mind in ways that make you think.
Her futuristic vision is often built around the past. She blends the Spanish heritage of Salvador Dali’s surrealism with Pedro Almodovar’s quirky humanity. It’s this humanity that makes Davidova’s work a point of view worth seeing.
Global Mode Omnívoros
In this network of digital installations, Davidova invites viewers to consider some of the big topics of our time including: climate change, animal cruelty, and what to do with this hot digital mess we have unleashed on the internet and social media.
In “Prometheus Herding PigGooses” (2020), a man looks right at you with his head in a box. Perspective distortions pull you into the room because the human eye is tuned to notice oddities.
Prometheus, the old Greek god who gave fire to humankind is the patron of New York City. But why is his head in a box? Why is there a projector? Why is the man a holding an electric cord? And what are those PigGooses flying around?
Is this Davidova’s commentary on how we have boxed ourselves in with social media that projects endless nonsense out into the world? Is modern life turning us from humans into cerdos (pigs)? Who knows the artist’s mind? That’s just our interpretation, but she makes you think which is what good art should do.
An Heir to La Movida Madrileña
In some way, Eva Davidova seems to be a digital heir of La Movida Madrileña, the counterculture movement that arose in Madrid, Spain after the death of the dictator Franco and Catholic Nationalism in 1975.
Dictatorship crushes the heart and soul. When it ends, countries take a collective deep breath and ask themselves, “Who are we?” In 1970s and 80s Madrid, there was a lot of mind-bending hedonist experimentation. Ibiza remains famous for that. The movement gave us Pedro Almodóvar and Ágatha Ruiz de la Prada who are still doing interesting work today.
Much of Davidova’s work is mind-bending and that’s why you should go see it.
See you at Eva Davidova “Global Mode Omnívoros.”