The early precocity and peripatetic life of the late David Medalla (1942–2020) has long expressed itself in a self-mythologizing and meandering body of work that includes kinetic sculpture, performance, paintings, handmade masks, and, as necessitated by such an itinerant existence, an emphasis on collage, drawings, notebooks, and ephemera.
Curated by Aram Moshayedi, “David Medalla: In Conversation with the Cosmos” was arranged chronologically (a feat given that an archive of a nomad like Medalla was anything but systematized), with the first room displaying dozens of early self-portraits, including dozens of small drawings exuding confidence, self-awareness, and humor. A small, palmsized drawing, Autobildinis (1961), contains the aplomb of Rembrandt’s youthful selfportraits, while Medalla’s use of ballpoint pen captured the dynamism and line quality of the Baroque master’s etchings. Medalla’s mythmaking was evident…