Led by an existential, dreamlike, and at times comical-grotesque exploration, the practice of Enrico David (1966, Ancona) encompasses painting, embroidery, drawing, and sculpture. His family heritage, rooted in the design and applied arts industry, has contributed to the variety of languages and techniques that characterise his production.

 His works explore the human figure as a metaphor for transformation. The body and faces, captured in a state of instability, between figuration and abstraction, represent for the artist the altered physical expression of the inner condition of the contemporary individual.

I Am Back Tomorrow (Domani torno) is the title of Enrico David’s exhibition at the Castello di Rivoli Museum of Contemporary Art, curated by Marianna Vecellio. Installed in the Manica Lunga, the exhibition includes a selection of works by Felice Casorati, Giorgio de Chirico, Natalia Goncharova, Giacomo Manzù, and Francis Picabia, from the Cerruti Collection. The artist describes these works as captions guiding the decoding of his own, referencing the etymology of the word “caption” (didascalia in Italian), linked to teaching, showing, and indicating.

At Villa Cerruti, Enrico David intervenes in the Music Room and the Mother’s Room with three works, one of which is shown here for the first time.

In the bronze sculpture After Birth 2, 2013, a human head is incorporated into the continuous linear design that shapes a small chair. The body, caught in a process of metamorphosis, hybridises with elements of furniture, transforming the work into a dysfunctional object.

 The painting Sofia III, 2025, is a possible landing point, a temporary destination, for the bust You are her, 2025, exhibited in Domani torno (I Am Back Tomorrow) at Castello di Rivoli. For David, drawing is taken as a model for sculpture, a form useful to understand how to anatomise the body to make it stand upright.

 In Untitled, 2024, a small theatre of figures hosts a heterogeneity of languages and a variety of materials, including – in addition to metal, wooden elements, and a pencil portrait – sponges from the Adriatic Sea. Ancona, his hometown, represents for the artist the geographical place of disorientation, a visceral reality in which it is possible to become strangers to ourselves. 

 In addition, in a distinctly curatorial gesture, the artist retrieves from the Foundation’s storage a group of antique dolls – including a commedia dell’arte marionette and a musical automaton doll – and reinstalls them inside the Villa, where Francesco Federico Cerruti had originally kept them.

Interferences is a programme by Fondazione Cerruti that introduces works by contemporary artists into Villa Cerruti, with occasional interventions at the Castello di Rivoli.

Enrico David lives and works in London. His practice, which spans multiple media –including painting, tapestry, drawing, and sculpture – explores the human figure as a metaphor for transformation. Recent solo exhibitions include: Enrico David. The Soul Drains the Hand, White Cube, Paris (2025); Enrico David – Destroyed Men Come and Go, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin (2023); Enrico David: Gradations of Slow Release, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C., and Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (2018); Enrico David: Fault Work, Sharjah Art Foundation, Sharjah (2016); Enrico David, Collezione Maramotti, Reggio Emilia (2015). Recent group exhibitions include: A Vanished Wholeness, Modern Art, Paris (2025); Italian Painting Today, Triennale di Milano, Milan (2023); ESPRESSIONI CON FRAZIONI, Castello di Rivoli Museum of Contemporary Art, Rivoli–Turin (2022); Untitled 2020, Palazzo Grassi, Punta della Dogana, Venice (2020); Natures, Natural and Unnatural (from the collection of V-A-C), The Whitechapel Gallery, London (2015). He participated in several editions of the Venice Biennale: in 2019 for the Italian Pavilion, and in 2013 and 2003.