Sabrina Roman explores the poetic and poignant world of Noah Davis in the UK’s first institutional overview of his work.
Noah Davis (1983-2015) Installation view at the Barbican Art Gallery, 2025. © Jemima Yong and Barbican Art Gallery
The UK’s first institutional overview of Noah Davis (1983-2015) at the Barbican is as much a demonstration of artistic finesse as a conduit that couples the unconscious with the conscious. Jarring us into this are over fifty creations stretching across sculpture, painting and paper-based projects. Ultimately, each acts as a moment within the artistic lifetime the gallery tries to encapsulate, which is no mean feat given this lifespan stretched from 2007 to the artist’s untimely passing in 2015. “Davis’s distinctive vision captures the nuances of life with poignancy and depth bringing personal and collective narratives in ways that profoundly connect with our times” Shanay Jhaveri, Head of Visual Arts at the Barbican, points out.
Perhaps, its triumph is in the exhibition’s ability to differentiate between the beginning and end of a piece, just as the artist was capable of separating the fantasy from the actuality. Certain pieces within space maintain their format as a series, whilst others stand individually such as Untitled (2015) which depicts two female youths lying on a sofa within a living room, a Rothko painting positioned behind them. It’s creations such as this one, that introduce observers to scenarios that are familiar to them, and yet, far beyond them.
Noah Davis, Untitled, 2015. The Museum of Modern Art, New York; gift of Marie-Josée and Henry R. Kravis in honour of Jerry Speyer’s 80th birthday, 2020. © The Estate of Noah Davis. Courtesy The Estate of Noah Davis and David Zwirner. Photo: Kerry McFate
Separate configurations of barbarity and vulnerability are further ubiquitous within 40 Acres and a Unicorn (2007), mostly through its depiction of a juvenile man astride an unicorn which emerges from an abysmal landscape to coalesce the absurd with the political. Yet both, as it turns out, belong to a similar purgatory. Awakening observers to this is its title, which nods to the unfulfilled degree that previously enslaved families emancipated throughout the American Civil War would be provided with ’40 acres and a mule.’
Noah Davis, 40 Acres and a Unicorn, 2007 © The Estate of Noah Davis. Courtesy The Estate of Noah Davis and David Zwirner. Photo: Anna Arca
Emphasising itself as an exhibition which goes forward as much as it looks backwards, the Barbican has also chosen to pull together Davis’s Savage Wilds series from 2012 as well as Isis (2009). The former concentrates on white talk-show entertainers of daytime television, particularly their continuous racist and chauvinist sketches of Black individuals for the sole purpose of viewer amusement. The latter introduces Davis’s spouse, Karon, as the title’s Egyptian goddess of sorcery, positioned before a white clapboard house. When considered simultaneously, both appear to discerningly encourage observers to differentiate between the watcher and the watched, the entertainer and the entertained.
Noah Davis, Isis, 2009. Mellon Foundation Art Collection. © The Estate of Noah Davis. Courtesy The Estate of Noah Davis and David Zwirner. Photo: Kerry McFate
The chronology of the space helps with this and paintings are interspersed with his considerations of curatorial practices sculpture, installation and paper-based conceptions. Although, it’s the underdogs which openly attract the eye. They are, after all, the pieces in between, the incongruous moments that encapsulate the mundanity of life. This doesn’t make them unremarkable by any means, rather it suggests them as being realistic, even, ritualistic.
Running together with the gallery show are a cross-arts array of events set in the Barbican; including a series of conversations from figures such as American poet and playwright Claudia Rankin and author and podcaster Helen Molesworth – in addition to exhibition orientations, production screenings, musical renditions and wellness activities.
The exhibition is on view until the 11th of May, 2025. For more information, please visit the Barbican.
Sabrina Roman uses exhibition reviews as a tool for critical reflection. She has contributed reviews, critical essays, and interviews to publications including Émergent, Whitehot Magazine, Trebuchet, Art Observed, and ART AFRICA. Her writing explores themes of desire, identity, commodification, and cultural production. She is pursuing postgraduate studies in English Literature at Queen Mary University of London, focusing on critical discourse and contemporary culture.
