Davide La Montagna's practice investigates love as an ambivalent and transformative force, attentive to the tensions that emerge within relations of desire, intimacy, and power. Working across installation, performance, writing, sculpture, video, and drawing, La Montagna approaches art-making as a process of evocation—bringing to the surface obscured or forgotten narratives shaped by violence, control, and affective dependency. Hiding functions as a key methodological strategy in his work and is closely linked to his reflection on sexuality. He understands homosexuality as a continuous renegotiation of spaces, temporalities, and roles that are socially pre-assigned. This ongoing process of division and redistribution inscribes itself onto bodies, shaping both their material and affective dimensions, and reaching into the realm of intimacy. From within a system that frames "deviant" sexualities as monstrous, La Montagna's research seeks alternative modes of inhabiting and narrating experience that can bypass dominant frameworks. Language plays a central role in this process. Drawing on poetic strategies, he is interested in forms of expression that resist reduction to information or exchange, and that instead open up new, shared grounds of meaning. He often works within the framework of domesticity, reconstructing familiar environments populated by everyday objects and minor mythologies. Through poetic language and subtle forms of concealment, his practice unfolds as a gothic inquiry into love, conceived as an uncanny and potentially dangerous technology of self-transformation. Across his work, unresolved dichotomies—love and violence, visibility and invisibility, presence and absence—remain deliberately open, revealing the fragile tensions that inhabit the space between them.
Education
2025 MFA Dutch Art Institute (DAI)
2024 Evil - Ana Texeira Pinto (2nd years theory seminar)
2023 Mean Girl Theory - Ana Texeira Pinto (1st year theory seminar)
2016 BFA Painting, Albertina Academy of Fine Arts, Turin
2011 Diploma - Fine Art Conservation and Restoration, Liceo d’Arte Aldo Passoni, Turin
2024 Evil - Ana Texeira Pinto (2nd years theory seminar)
2023 Mean Girl Theory - Ana Texeira Pinto (1st year theory seminar)
2016 BFA Painting, Albertina Academy of Fine Arts, Turin
2011 Diploma - Fine Art Conservation and Restoration, Liceo d’Arte Aldo Passoni, Turin
Solo & Duo Shows
(upcoming) Tears on the Bedrock, Atelier Vauban, Besançon
2026
(upcoming) Duo show w/ Benni Bosetto, Buonolopera Foundation during Artissima, Turin
Such a Fever: I Can’t Stop Living, duo show w/ Matilde Sambo, Joystick Space, Venice
2025
I’m Half Sick of Shadows, 10documents, Rome, curated by Ginevra Ludovici
Things Unsaid, Then Forgotten, Archivio Gribaudo, Turin, curated by Lilou Vidal
2020
Nothing More Than Feelings, MUFANT, Turin, curated by Sergey Kanstedal & Ilenia Berra
2018
Lascio il nulla a nessuno, Almanac, Turin
I’m Half Sick of Shadows, 10documents, Rome, curated by Ginevra Ludovici
Things Unsaid, Then Forgotten, Archivio Gribaudo, Turin, curated by Lilou Vidal
2020
Nothing More Than Feelings, MUFANT, Turin, curated by Sergey Kanstedal & Ilenia Berra
2018
Lascio il nulla a nessuno, Almanac, Turin
Group Shows
2026
(upcoming) Enmerkar’s Riddles, French Place, Milan
(upcoming) Olfacta Fair, Turin
What Could/Should Curating Do? Final project during Ljubiana Art Week
2025
Efemeridi. 2013-2025, Almanac, Turin
The Good Company, Iuno, Rome, curated by Giulia Gaibisso
Open Studio w/ Virginia Ariu, Cripta747, Turin
2024
Chez Paint It Black, Paint It Black, Turin
2023
Del sangue, Kain III edizione Festivial Arte Nomadica, Feretino
pluriball II, final project Campo22 Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Fondazione Rusconi/Spazio Petroni, Bologna
(upcoming) Enmerkar’s Riddles, French Place, Milan
(upcoming) Olfacta Fair, Turin
What Could/Should Curating Do? Final project during Ljubiana Art Week
2025
Efemeridi. 2013-2025, Almanac, Turin
The Good Company, Iuno, Rome, curated by Giulia Gaibisso
Open Studio w/ Virginia Ariu, Cripta747, Turin
2024
Chez Paint It Black, Paint It Black, Turin
2023
Del sangue, Kain III edizione Festivial Arte Nomadica, Feretino
pluriball II, final project Campo22 Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Fondazione Rusconi/Spazio Petroni, Bologna
2022
pluriball, Campo22 Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Palazzo di Velluto, Turin
paradise is exactly where you are right now only much, much better, Palazzo Niccolò Spinola di Luccoli, Genoa
2021
Avalanche, Regatta2, Düsseldorf
Vagare ai margini, Co_atto, Milan
Abbiamo invitato un po’ di artisti nello spazio, Osserevatorio Futura, Turin
2019
Estate, autunno, State Of, Milan
Greeenhouse: Your hair, your leaves, your branches, your rivers, Almanac, Turin
Rivolta, duo project w/ Giulia Crispiani curated by Campobase, i10 Spazi Indipendenti Art Verona
A Jumi, BoCsArt, Cosenza
GIFC, Spaziobuonasera, Turin
Cloud, Meteor and Star Are Men Seen from Afar, Car DRDE, Bologna
2018
Black Mirror, MAM Mario Mauroner Contemporary Art, Wien
2017
Thinking Songs of Things, curated by Stefano Collicelli Cagol, MAM Mario Mauroner Contemporary Art, Wien
2016
Teatrum Botanicum - Emerging Talents, PAV, Turin
Performances & Readings
Workshops/Residencies/Prizes
2026
(upcoming) Frank O’Hara: Poeta come amante, curated by Allison Grimaldi Donahue, MAMbo, Bologna
(upcoming) Mahmoud Darwish Poetry Day, organized by Centre Pompidou & curated by Lilou Vidal, Paint It Black, Turin
Inter/Mission: Flower Therapy, w/ E. N. Mirembe, Tique, Antwerp
Poets Reading, au JUS, Brussels
Love is a Nightless City, Extra City Kunsthal, Antwerp
Il Dio dei secondi, Cantadora, Rome
Antigruppo Siciliano, Cripta747, Turin
2025
(upcoming) Frank O’Hara: Poeta come amante, curated by Allison Grimaldi Donahue, MAMbo, Bologna
(upcoming) Mahmoud Darwish Poetry Day, organized by Centre Pompidou & curated by Lilou Vidal, Paint It Black, Turin
Inter/Mission: Flower Therapy, w/ E. N. Mirembe, Tique, Antwerp
Poets Reading, au JUS, Brussels
Love is a Nightless City, Extra City Kunsthal, Antwerp
Il Dio dei secondi, Cantadora, Rome
Antigruppo Siciliano, Cripta747, Turin
2025
What Sound a Rose Makes, 10documents, Rome
The Anatomy of a Rose, Centrale Fies, Dro
The Anatomy of a Rose, Centrale Fies, Dro
[WE SEARCHED SO MUCH IN ERRATIC WAYS] with Archive Ensemble, SPEL, Nicosia, Cyprus
What Sound a Rose Makes, Vleeshal, Middelburg
Gemini-Alfa 3, Festival curated by Paint it Blac, Turinbest secret place w/ Meii Soh & Davide La Montagna, Cashemire Radio
Paninare (Live Broadcast+Poetry reading), host CANALE MILVA during Art City at Gelateria Sogni di Ghiaccio, Bologna
2024
To Get Out of Bed w/ Allison Grimaldi Donahue, Paint it Black, Turin
PRU-DONCE: Cinema on the Radio, with Bulegoa z/b, Essaouira
Vibrant Natures: On Deay and Rebirth, Festival organized by Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, Almanac and Orti Generali, Turin
Love Hurts n.1, Almanac, Turin
Saint Comètes n.1, Almanac, Turin
Rebirth & Decay w/ Allison Grimaldi Donahue, Almanac, Turin
Ceremony of All Living Things, Metronimie Festival, Turin
2027
(upcoming) Ateliers Vauban, Besançon
2026
MORPHO, Antwerp
2024
Aperto Relazionarsi con il presente, organized by Mucho Mas!, Cripta747 and Almanac, promoted by Fondazione CRT, Turin
Finalist L’arte contemporanea per il Piemonte del Vino, Artissima Vinitaly 2024
2019
Q-RATED Performance organized by Quadriennale di Roma at Pirelli Hangar Bicocca with Cally Spooner, Marie de Brugerolle and Richard Birkett
Finalist Ottava edizione Premio Francesco Fabbri per le Arti Contemporanee
Residenze Artistiche BoCs Art, Cosenza
Meet & Crit w/ Guglielmo Castelli and Giulio Saverio Rossi, Campobase, Turin
Press & Writings
2025
Some Haunted Havens of Precarious Love, Nero Editions (online)
I’m Half Sick of Shadows, Flash Art Italia (online)
Efemeridi 2013 - 2025. Mousse Magazine (online)
Things Unsaid, Then Forgotten, Contemporary Art Library (online)
Endless Ends: From Sacred Music to Phantom Sounds on the Brink of a New Dark Age, Journal of the Performing Arts, Issue 7: On Ghosts by Chiara Pagano
2024
Voices on the Radio, Language on My Mind: Poetry’s Resurgence in Contemporary Art by Allison Grimaldi Donahue, Mousse Publishing (online & published on Mousse 88)
I Dream in Blue, text for Virginia Ariu’s exhibition What’s Got Into Me, Contemporary Art Library
Pretty People, text for the exhibition Pretty People curated by Antonia Rebekka Truninger, Contemporary Art Library
2020
Nothing More Than Feelings, Tzvetnik (online)
Some Haunted Havens of Precarious Love, Nero Editions (online)
I’m Half Sick of Shadows, Flash Art Italia (online)
Efemeridi 2013 - 2025. Mousse Magazine (online)
Things Unsaid, Then Forgotten, Contemporary Art Library (online)
Endless Ends: From Sacred Music to Phantom Sounds on the Brink of a New Dark Age, Journal of the Performing Arts, Issue 7: On Ghosts by Chiara Pagano
2024
Voices on the Radio, Language on My Mind: Poetry’s Resurgence in Contemporary Art by Allison Grimaldi Donahue, Mousse Publishing (online & published on Mousse 88)
I Dream in Blue, text for Virginia Ariu’s exhibition What’s Got Into Me, Contemporary Art Library
Pretty People, text for the exhibition Pretty People curated by Antonia Rebekka Truninger, Contemporary Art Library
2020
Nothing More Than Feelings, Tzvetnik (online)