John Davies
03.09.2025 - 24.10.2025
I Call Myself a Haunted House
ARTE GIANI
John Davies (*1946) is a British artist. As one of the leading figurative sculptors of his generation, he is represented in important public collections around the world. He came to fame early on in Germany through his participation in the 1977 Documenta and was subsequently acquired by several museums and collections in Germany, particularly those focusing on sculpture, such as the Wilhelm-Lehmbruck Museum, Duisburg, and the German Trade Union Confederation, Berlin. He is represented in museums worldwide, not only in numerous museums in Great Britain (and Germany) but also in Ireland, Spain, Japan, Australia and the USA.
The Marlborough Fine Arts gallery in London, which closed its doors at the beginning of this year, represented Davies for several decades and gave me the opportunity to exhibit his works here in Frankfurt twice around 15 to 20 years ago.
John Davies is known for his life-size sculptures of people, especially isolated "heads", which range in size from miniature (around 3 cm) to oversized (approx. 150 cm). It is their penetrating, inward-looking gazes that attract and fascinate the viewer.
The motif of the "houses", as sculptures and drawings, also always depicts people. The house stands as a cipher for the human being. It contains all his sensitivities and feelings, and of course also those of the people who have previously lived in the houses. Quiet and loud dramas are expressed in it, mostly with the metaphor of the tree (it blossoms or burns).
About the exhibition title: John Davies alludes to the fact that houses are actually individuals, with all their personal characteristics. Just as a house has its ghosts, we humans have our ghosts and our stories. In photographs of our ancestors, we try to capture this magic and make it a part of ourselves. John Davies succeeds in expressing this in an intense, almost uncanny visual language.
ARTE GIANI
Taunusanlage 18
60325 Frankfurt am Main
T. +49 699 758 3788
Directed, Filmed and Edited by Edward Caughlin and Louis Price. Thanks to John Davies, Sarah Wedderburn, Chris Hughes, James Collie