Ben Uri Research Unit

Born: 1942 Manila, Philippines

Died: 2020 Phillipines

Year of Migration to the UK: 1960

Biography

Artist and political activist David Cortez Medalla was born on 23 March 1942 in Manila, Philippines. He demonstrated an early affinity for language, affiliating with various newspapers from a young age. In a 1954 article, two professors from the University of the Philippines referred to him as ‘A Boy with Feelings for Words'. This began the swift recognition of his ability and, despite his youth and lack of a high school diploma, he was invited to lecture at the university. Medalla was subsequently accepted into a gifted writers’ programme and awarded a travel grant from the Commission for Free Asia, enabling him to travel to New York, USA, where he was admitted to Columbia University. He returned to the Philippines in 1955 and then spent the summer of 1960 in Paris.

Medalla arrived in London in 1960 and began sharing a flat in South Kensington with artist, Paul Keeler. Medalla immediately engaged with the British avant-garde and radical art scene. In 1964, alongside German-born émigré, Gustav Metzger, Italian-born émigré, Marcello Salvadori, as well as Keeler and Guy Brett, he co-founded the Signals Gallery in Wigmore Street in central London. It became a vital space for promoting international artists and championing experimental art forms, particularly kinetic art, which was previously unfamiliar to the broader British public. Between 1964 and 1966, Medalla served as editor of the Signals Newsbulletin, in which he published his ‘MMMMMMM…MANIFESTO (a fragment)’ in 1965. In it, he articulated a global and poetically experimental approach to sculpture, including dreamlike personifications of sculptures undertaking en masse migration. After the closure of Signals, Medalla embarked on a new project in 1967: the Exploding Galaxy. Situated at Keeler’s house at 99 Balls Pond Road, it became a hub for subversive, radical, and counter-cultural creatives and connected with the UFO Club, a nightclub founded by American-born émigré writer and record producer Joe Boyd, and political activist, John Hopkins. It was also linked to the counter-cultural arts centre, Arts Lab, initiated in London by the USA-born émigré artist, Jim Haynes. In 1974, Medalla founded the artistic collective, Artists for Democracy. Following in the footsteps of historical avant-gardes, the group merged political activism with art and advanced a socialist creative practice. For a month and half in 1995, Medalla used a flat on 55 Gee Street in London as both a living space and exhibition venue. In 1998, he co-founded the London Biennale with his partner and long-term collaborator, the Australian artist, Adam Nankervis. Their aim was to challenge the conventional concept of the art world ‘biennale’, typically sponsored by governments or corporations, where artists are selected based on geography, citizenship, nationality, race, and ethnicity. The London Biennale sought to dismantle these barriers, fostering a more inclusive and accessible platform.

Much of Medalla’s own work revolved around creating experimental sculpture and resisting consumer society. His practice focussed on kinetic, politicised and experimental pieces, as well as the exploration of image and text and the relationship that people have with nature and machines. Primarily, he is considered a pioneer of participation art in the UK. One of his most famous works, A Stitch in Time (1968-2017), invited people around the world to contribute stitches to a communal piece of fabric. Inspired by a farewell gift given to lovers at Heathrow Airport, the piece speaks to a sense of global movement and complex interconnected threads. His soap bubble sculptures, also known as Cloud Canyons, are some of his most iconic pieces, consisting of slowly rising foam. Medalla often thought of such pieces as ‘auto-creative’ sculptures, inspired by Metzger’s concept of auto-destructive art. Medalla also explored the relationship between image and text by disrupting standard syntax and leveraging the visual power of letters.

Medalla spent much of his adult life in the UK, with brief sojourns in Brazil, France, Germany, Italy, and the USA, as well as travelling extensively. However, he never felt like a migrant or exile, preferring to think of himself as a cosmopolitan citizen of the world, whose home could be anywhere. Consequently, he never sought British citizenship, and a sense of migration – via a metaphor of birds – as well a sense of being a nomadic artist, remained key themes in his practice. Medalla exhibited widely, especially later in his career. In 2004 his work featured in Art & The 60s: This Was Tomorrow at Tate Britain, London; in 2012, the same venue included his work in Migrations: Journeys into British Art, which explored the theme of migration from 1500 until the present day. In 2018, Thomas Dane Gallery, London, presented a major retrospective of Signals and its founders, Signals: If You Like I Shall Grow. David Cortez Medalla died in Manila, The Philippines on 28 December 2020. In the UK public domain, his works are held in the Tate Collection and Arts Council Collection, while archival material is held in Tate archives.

Related books

Aram Moshayedi, David Medalla: In Conversation with the Cosmos (Los Angeles: Hammer Museum/University of California, 2024)
Steven Cairns, ed., David Medalla: Parables of Friendship (Bonn: Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther und Franz König, 2022)
Eva Bentcheva, 'Distinguishing Artistic Mobility from Diaspora through Philippine Art History', in Patrick Flores and Loredana Pazzini-Paracciani, eds., Interlaced Journeys: Diaspora and the Contemporary in Southeast Asian Art (Hong Kong: Osage Publications, 2020), pp.29-46
Chanon Kenji Praepipatmongkol, ‘David Medalla: Dreams of Sculpture’, Oxford Art Journal, Vol. 43, No. 3, 2020, pp. 339-359
Christine Macel, ed., La Biennale di Venezia : 57. esposizione internationale d'arte: viva arte viva (New York: Rizzoli International Publications, 2017)
Lena Mohamed, 'The Stateless Artist' in Lizzy Carey-Thomas ed, Migrations: Journeys into British Art (London, Tate Publishing, 2012)
Purissima Benitez-Johannot, ed., The life and art of David Medalla (Quezon City: Vibal Foundation, 2012)

Public collections

Related organisations

Artists for Democracy (other )
Exploding Galaxy (founder )
London Biennale (co-founder )
Signals Gallery (co-founder )
Signals Newsbulletin (editor)

Selected exhibitions

David Medalla: In Conversation with the Cosmos (solo exhibition), Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, USA (2024)
David Medalla: Parables of Friendship, Museion, Bolzano, Italy, in association with Bonner Kunstverein, Bonn, Germany (2022)
London Biennale, various locations, London (2000-22)
Signals: If you like it I shall Grow, Thomas Dane, London (2018)
Viva Arte Viva (group show), La Biennale di Venezia 57, Venice (2017)
Art & The 60s: This Was Tomorrow (group show), Tate Britain, London (2004)
Art & The 60s: This Was Tomorrow (group show), Tate Britain, London (2004)
People Have a House (group show), ICA, London (1972)
Environmental Exhibition (group show), Ikon Gallery, Birmingham (1972)
David Medalla (solo exhibition), Indica Gallery, London (1967)
Solo and group exhibitions, Signals Gallery, London (1962-64)

Ben Uri archive

Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [David Medalla ]