The highlight of Contessa Gallery’s Art Miami booth will be David Datuna’s Jay-Z / Picasso: Opposition of Imaginations. Two portraits, Picasso and Jay-Z, represent the contact of the conceptions of two diverse artistic periods. This opposition creates an energetic, mental, philosophical, and emotional perspective on art’s evolution.
The two portraits together serve as a collective image, with Picasso embodying and conceptualizing the energy, fundamentalism, and expression of the 20th century, and Jay-Z’s fragmented portrait representing modern art as an experimental puzzle. The installation of the portraits is arranged in such a way that they are both looking “eye to eye” at one another. This creates a certain power that not only captures the viewer on a visual and emotional level, but also mentally and philosophically, transferring the viewer’s thoughts, feelings, and perspectives inside the work, filtering them through a lens, and inspiring continuous re-examination of the artwork.
Initially, using a stop motion effect, the artist distorts the image, instantly changing and multiplying it by the effects and refractions of the optical lenses. This method creates an effect in which the viewer notices multiple reflections of the object. The multitude of reflections creates tension within each piece and between them as the images of Jay-Z and Picasso represent separate art epochs.
In his works, David Datuna skillfully plays with the true meaning and value of the lenses and glasses, giving them a particular meaning and point of view. Using lenses of various diopters in his works, he symbolizes the admissibility of the different points of view and attitudes towards the same image. Lenses symbolically represent illusion, perception, fragmentation, and unification.
Deliberately leaving out any notions of resolutions, the artist forces us to re-examine ourselves and the artwork, pushing the viewer to see something more than just the two portraits.
“Through the Jay-Z / Picasso and Datuna for Google Glass projects, David Datuna will be the single most talked about artist during Miami Art Week and it will be abundantly clear that David Datuna has become a leading voice and force for the future of contemporary art.”
– Steve Hartman, owner of Contessa Gallery