Born in Manila in 1942, David Medalla moved to New York at the age of 14. After studying Greek philosophy and ancient Greek drama at Columbia University, he began to commit in art making. Throughout his life, Medalla constantly moved and worked from city to city including Berlin, Edinburgh, New York, London and Paris. His work ranges from poetry to sculpture, kinetic art, painting, installation and performance. In 1994 he founded the Mondrian Fan Club in New York with Adam Nankervis. Embracing unexpected changes and consequences, Medalla’s works capture ephemeral states of things.
He was invited to numerous important exhibitions and biennales including Live in Your Head: When Attitudes Become Forms curated by Harald Szeemann at the Kunsthalle Bern in Switzerland (1969); DOCUMENTA 5 in Kassel, Germany (1972); the 2nd Johannesburg Biennale, with Adam Nankervis, the Mondrian Fan Club (1998); Performa 07 in New York, USA (2007); the 16th Sydney Biennial in Sydney, Australia (2008); the 9th Mercosul Biennial in Porto Alegre in Brazil (2013); the 8th Asian Pacific Triennale in Brisbane, Australia (2015) and The 57th Venice Biennale (2017). In 2016, he was shortlisted for the inaugural Hepworth Prize for Sculpture.