José Dávila: Essay on Permanence

“Essay on Permanence”, a solo exhibition by José Dávila at Albarrán Bourdais in Menorca, presents new sculptures and paintings, some created on the island with local materials. The artist continues his investigation into balance, gravity, fragility and resistance, translating principles of drawing and construction into three-dimensional form. Originally trained as an architect, Dávila explores the physical mechanisms that allow objects to sustain themselves and engage with their surroundings.

His interest in megalithic structures, including Menorca’s Talayotic monuments, situates his practice within a lineage of primordial gestures that connect territory, material and cosmic observation. The sculptural series “Fundamental Concern”, installed across two floors, derives from the ancestral act of positioning objects in space, constructing situations of unstable equilibrium where gravity becomes a sustaining agent. As art historian Sacha Craddock observes, Dávila’s works expose rather than conceal their mechanisms, articulating tensions between stability and precariousness, resistance and imminence. Reinterpreting materials such as cement, stone and steel, and integrating those sourced locally, the artist underscores the correspondence between physical and symbolic weight while opening a dialogue with minimalist and conceptual traditions.