Davide Skerlj: Drawing as a Home Between Body and Technology

Davide Skerlj, a graduate of the Accademia di Belle Arti di Venezia (1986), has exhibited at Grand Palais (Paris), Künstlerhaus (Vienna), MACRO-Asilo (Rome), 29 Les Instants Vidéo (Marseille), and DCTV (New York). He lived in New York from 1991, collaborating with nonprofits like NY Arts Magazine and Broadway Gallery. Now based in Trieste, he is preparing the project Mythos Erz in Vordernberg, Austria, focused on repurposing a former steelworks. In an interview with Daniele Capra, Skerlj discusses his multidisciplinary practice spanning sculpture, performance, video, and film. He identifies drawing as the medium that feels like home, allowing him to process fragility between body, humanity, narrative, and technology. His works often involve collective participation, inspired by historical avant-gardes like Dada, Gordon Matta-Clark, Viennese Actionism, and Alejandro Jodorowsky. He seeks to expand his research into the public sphere and collaboration, particularly through video. Skerlj views time as malleable material and is drawn to fragmented, non-sequential narratives that require the viewer to complete the meaning. His approach is summed up as 'looking for cracks in the walls.'