Davide Longfils
Frequenze
From 14 to 28 March 2026
The Exhibition
It begins with the concept of frequency as a wave, a sound spectrum, a rhythm, a heartbeat (including a heartbeat), a manifestation of our complexity and our individuality. Indeed, it is through our harmonic spectrum that our essence emerges, and through our voice we can manifest and identify ourselves. Each voice, however similar, has its own specificity. Based on this premise, the work makes visible the frequencies of certain passages of poetry and songwriters' lyrics that have been significant to the artist and to his personal development. The creation of the sound spectrum, frequency, and harmonic spectrum of the songs and poems reflects the artist's pronunciation, which are somehow visualized through the works and thus transferred from the auditory to the visual sense.
This realization is achieved through a double choice. On one side, wood, with a predominantly natural chromatic scale manifested through the various types of wood used (ash, oak, hickory, fir, larch, and hornbeam), on the other, an explosion of color through the creation of watercolors on cotton paper. The wooden creation uses a dual support: on one side, a white-glazed panel made specifically for the occasion, or alternatively, a walnut or larch slat. In both cases, wooden strips, made in various sizes and from different types of wood, are glued together.
This dual artistic expression pursues an aesthetic desire and simultaneously manifests the richness of an individual's harmonious nuances and expressive potential, from the simplest, most profound, and primitive to the most complex.
The Works
The Artist
Davide Longfils was born in Ostiglia, in the province of Mantua, on January 5, 1977. In 1995, he moved to Bologna, where he graduated with a degree in Literature, specializing in the Psychology of Art. The Emilian city played a crucial role in his personal and artistic development. Here, he forged deep and lasting friendships and nurtured his passions for photography (which he experimented with for several years, also exploring black and white printing) and music.
Influences and inspiration also came from the painting and drawing he perceived through the works of his grandfather, Enrico Longfils, and the works of his painter friends, Carlo Bondioli Bettinelli and Roberto Pagnani.
He collaborated as a photographer with his friend and artist Luca Francesconi from 2003 to 2006, and during the same years, he was an actor in the Zerobeat company, with which he performed "E.R.O. Camillo Berneri" and, in 2018, "Il fiume e il Re di Pietra" with Elia Scanavini.
In October 2004, with "L'Uguaglianza introvabile" (The Untraceable Equality), he won the Best Video award in the Landscapes of Biodiversity competition, organized by the Italian Foundation for Photography and coordinated by Anna Detheridge as part of the 10th International Photography Biennial.
His artistic research is constantly evolving, on an interior and poetic journey that culminates in the series of drawings "Mah-jong: a kind therapy," a project inspired by the tiles of this popular Chinese pastime. The retrieval of ideograms linked to the symbolism of the Universe, the Elements, and Nature (to which Mah-jong is closely linked), inserted into stylized landscapes of specific places, becomes a kind of "architectural acupuncture," a therapeutic manipulation of the world's suffering geographies.
He is now exploring the concept of frequency as a "wave," as a sound spectrum, as a rhythm, as a heartbeat (including a cardiac one), as a manifestation of our complexity and our individuation. The work makes visible the frequencies of certain places, excerpts from poems, and lyrics by singer-songwriters that have been significant to the artist and his personal development.
Though spanning diverse artistic fields, his works never renounce poetry, song, and immersion in nature. He has exhibited in several private galleries and prestigious Italian and international venues, including Milan, Como, Bologna, Alessandria, Verona, Vicenza, Mantua, Berlin, Basel, New York, and Beijing.
