A Michelangelo’s David that will turn heads

A new replica of Michelangelo’s statue of David arrived on the art scene in November. It was launched at Britain’s Silverstone Formula One racetrack on a Friday night and, as time goes by, is likely to have art purists frothing at the mouth. At the same time, there are already plaudits galore from srtistically inclined engineers for a replica that uses space age material to marry cutting edge technology and engineering with art, along with a commentary on gender and attitudes to nudity.

It is the latest project of Alastair Gibson who hailed originally from Edenvale in South Africa’s Gauteng province. He worked his was to become the chief mechanic for Formula One teams Benetton and BAR Honda before leaving to combine his engineering expertise with art. Carbon fibre and discarded F1 parts, combined with an interest in marine biology, launched this unique project. By 2011, Gibson’s work was being exhibited alongside that of artists such as Damien Hirst at the prestigious London Art Fair.

Marine life such as sharks, rays and piranha fish were his first inspiration and established the now internationally acclaimed Carbon Art studio, with more than 2,500 artwork sales to its credit.. David was a mammoth project made possible with the encouragement of a German art dealer who was prepared to stump up the more than R7.5 million to cover the cost of the material alone. It comprises 15 individual pieces, starting with a single foot and ankle, fused together in a seamless finish, hailed by one commentator as “a triumph of manufacturing innovation”.

It is certainly unlike any of a number of replicas of the iconic statue (completed in 1504) that have been produced over the years. All were made of plaster and, down to the white, marble-like colour, have been true to the original. The latest is not only true to the original, it is glistening black, and can be revealed as either masculine, feminine (as “Davina”) or Barbie doll gender neutral, using separate and seamlessly interchanged magnetised parts. David can, in fact become Davina in about two minutes.

“In ancient times, there were women warriors too,” says Alastair Gibson. “Michelangelo had no idea what this fighter (against Goliath) looked like. He. made him up, so I have shown that David could just as easily have been Davina.”

When he first started on the project more than two years ago, he considered only creating a chest cavity which could be exposed to reveal a purple — “brave” — heart. Then, drawing from his engineered emotive series of works, he introduced two more interchangeable hearts, gold (purity) and red (passion).

Sexual identity came to the forefront because of the hypocritical Victorian obsession with nudity and genitalia related specifically to Michelangelo’s David. Hence a green fig leaf that can be attached to the genital area in the three basic gender transformations. This because, in 1857, when Queen Victoria viewed the plaster replica in London, she was apparently shocked at the nudity. So a plaster fig leaf was ordered and attached. It apparently stayed in place until 1953 and is now separately on display in London’s V&A museum, alongside the now fully nude plaster replica.

There are no details yet, but it seems that a number of art galleries in Europe and the United States have been approached to display the Carbon Art David.