Jose Davila - Only the Shadow Knows

For his first solo show at Galleria Gentili, Only the Shadow Knows, Jose Davila (Mexico 1974) has taken Plato's allegory of the cave as a point of departure for intertwining a body of recent works.

The project focuses on the distances between perception and reality as well as memory and history. Using the language of art and architecture, Davila uses basic forms, materials and space to playfully explore these distances.

Probably the first thing you notices when observing an object is its shape. Shape is an enormously useful characteristic because it provides an immediate impression of the spirit of the subject. Responding to shape is the first step in both a logical and intuitive search for the meaning of what we see.

If responding to shape is a fundamental aspect of seeing an object, it also interacts with all our other perceptual responses in helping us make sense of our subjects. However, perceptual impressions are not reality, they are only the shadows of the real subject / object.

Through this series of sculptures, installation, collages and piezography prints, Davila reminds us that we must not forget we need to know how to understand and render the shadows of what we see in order to fully discover the source object that creates them.

Jose Davila
Only the Shadow Knows