To arrive at the current Library of Skins we used David’s personal files on his computer. The pictures (more than 70,000 in total) were sprinkled over hundreds of folders and sub-folders, mostly unnamed. The first step consisted in associating every single picture to a piece. At times, David played tricks on us: photos we initially thought were different pieces were in fact different skins of the same piece. Piece #143 is a good example. We originally filed the pictures under three different pieces before we realized they were one and the same. As a result of such mergers, some ID numbers no longer appear. For a given piece, there were anywhere from a few pictures to over a thousand. The second step consisted in identifying which pictures represented the important skins of a piece. Along the way, we also identified important and representative pictures falling in three categories:

  • Details: David took great care in photographing details of his pieces, highlighting layering, brushwork, and the many creatures emerging from his strokes.
  • Derivative: David sometimes photoshopped his pictures or used special lighting to create derivative objects based on a piece.
  • Context: David often took pictures of his pieces placed in a larger context, such as near objects in the house or outside, or next to other pieces, forming insightful family pictures.

You can see the type of pictures we filed under each category in the case of Battle Cry by following this link.

Ultimately, once the collaborative curation project we put forth here is completed, our goal is to build a complete virtual exhibit. Each piece will be presented with its accompanying narrative built from David’s words, and with additional pictures of details, context and derivative materials. This layered knowledge will also be summarized in a full catalogue. You can already see an example of narrative and catalogue entry for Battle Cry.

Cataloguing and building a narrative for every piece represented here will allow us to show David’s art to the world in the way that it deserves. This information will also eventually accompany a future exhibit, which we will try to organize in the coming years. Although ambitious, this endeavor is just the tip of the iceberg. Throughout his life David embodied such creativity that it will take many more years to integrate it fully. A few “side projects” are of particular interest to us:

  • “Kitchenization” is a term David used to described how his art escaped the frame for the first time in 2010 in the kitchen of the Memeway. He documented this process in great detail, offering us insight on the birthplace of many of his later pieces. Curating this material is an ongoing project.
  • David’s personal files included many video and audio files, ranging from a few seconds to over an hour long. In these videos he extended the message carried by his paintings and sculptures and voiced his unique take on the world. A very small fraction of these videos are on his Youtube channel. An ongoing project is to integrate these video and audio files to this site and to use them in a documentary.
  • David also left behind many notebooks and written pieces, where he recounted the awakening triggered by his cancer diagnosis, his relationship with Taco-the-Cat (his muse and companion), and the theory behind his practice of automatic art as healing. He started compiling this material into at least two books, for kids and adults: C for Cat and Hotel Chemo. Since 2014, some of this material has been digitized, and we are now trying to put everything together in a way that would be faithful to David’s vision.
  • Finally, most of what we are presenting in this website concerns David’s last artistic period, from 2008 to 2014 at the Memeway. Our long-term goal would be to document the roots of the Memeway, from David’s political activism and fashion design in South Africa and America, to his interest for spoken word, music and dance.

Please let us know if you can help with these projects