David Lamelas: The Machine

David Lamelas: The Machine is a comprehensive survey exhibition of the Argentine artist’s work and his first major solo presentation in New York. A foundational yet overlooked figure of 1960s and ’70s art, Lamelas has produced paintings, drawings, sculptures, installations, performances, and films, bridging Conceptual, Minimalist, and Pop approaches to art making. Over six decades, he has created a diverse body of work while living across Buenos Aires, London, Los Angeles, and Paris, among other locations, developing a nomadic sensibility that profoundly shaped his practice.  
 
The exhibition at Dia Chelsea comprises three parts—a presentation, a film program, and a performance series. Preceding the exhibition, the performance series begins with 1416 m3 (2014), performed in the galleries on February 10. The piece, scored by composer Gavin Gamboa following Lamelas’s concept, uses sound and voice to represent volumetric and metaphysical space, functioning as an immersive prelude to the installation. Opening on March 6, the nonlinear presentation in the main galleries emphasizes key moments from the artist’s career, surveying 1965 to the present through a wide range of works, among them recent additions to Dia’s collection, such as the especially commissioned Situación de tiempo II (Situation of Time II, 2025). In parallel, the films in the program space further expand the physical dimension of the exhibition, illustrating the breadth of the artist’s moving-image practice from the mid-1970s to 2020s, and unfolding in four chapters. Together, The Machine’s multiple parts reveal Lamelas’s lifelong preoccupations with information and communications, and how they are mediated by the viewer’s perception.