Tell Years and Still Not Finished… QUAYOLA X METAL

Words Angus McLean & Bella Spratley

11 Sep 2024

"My work is about the tensions between past, present and future. Although the sculpture in Fighters reminds us of a classical paradigm, the true focus of the work is in the new gestural expressiveness of the process. The geometry left surrounding the figure belongs to the algorithmic, aesthetic languages that are very much ultra-contemporary"

“Everything I do is the result of an ephemeral computational process” explains the Italian multimedia visual artist, Davide Quayola to METAL, but his pieces are here to stay.

Melding traditional and contemporary materials, his notable marble sculptures made with programmed robotic arms that drill into the stone recall the work of miners and geologists out of the picture in his art film Fighters that is a culmination of 10 years of research.

Fighters, released in May-time and shared on Nowness, explores the balance between human and technological. It is set in Carrara, “the historical marble quarries where most of western art came from” as the artist puts it, adding an emphasis on sculpture as primary. Fighters makes heavy references to Italian art history and visualises the ever-presence of machinery in modern production.