Rosalind Davis
Haus Konstructiv, 2016
mixed media on paper
47.5 x 33 cm
@ The Artist
Rosalind Davis drawings from this series are made as a direct reference to the Dutch artist Constant Nieuwenhuys (1920-2005) and his major work New Babylon. Constant took 19 years to...
Rosalind Davis drawings from this series are made as a direct reference to the Dutch artist Constant Nieuwenhuys (1920-2005) and his major work New Babylon. Constant took 19 years to complete his project (around 1969) which consists of a vast series of highly detailed maquettes, drawing, paintings, writings of a city ‘made for a society of creative people who are freed from stultifying everyday work: “Homo Ludens” (“the human player”).’ It is at the same time a social utopia, an urban architectural design, an artistic vision, a cultural revolution, a technical conquest, and a solution for the practical problems of the industrial age. The work had a strong influence on the post-war constructivists. Anthony Hill included Constant in his important anthology Data (1968). Rosalind Davis produced these works as an homage to Constant on the inner spaces of the New Babylon. Her works on paper allude to the physical quality of the maquettes by inserting pieces of colour acetates as colour panels and to the intimation of craft by stitching threads outlining the composition.