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The Philadelphia Art Museum has been roiled by internal friction involving its board, its former CEO and the departures of its executive staff. Nevertheless, the PAM is still functioning as a museum by launching a new exhibition.
“Noah Davis” is the first solo retrospective of the artist whose career was remarkably short and bright. The Los Angeles–based painter had his first solo show in 2009 at age 25, at the Tilton Gallery in New York. Six years later, he died from a rare form of cancer at 32.
“Noah Davis” is an internationally touring exhibition that originated at the Barbican in London. The Philadelphia Art Museum is its fourth and final stop, and the exhibit’s only North American venue.
“Most of these paintings manage to do two things at the same time,” said curator Eleanor Nairne. “They have this charge of familiarity, as if there’s something in them that you recognize. But overall, you’ve never seen anything quite like it before. So you both know it, and yet it feels uncanny to you at the same time.”
Noah Davis painted in a mostly figurative style with drips and smears that made his images of Black figures appear dreamy and, in the words of a New York Times critic, “magical.” He created textures by applying caustic chemical solvents on the surface to degrade the paint, in some cases creating burn effects.