JAMES CASEBERE, JOSE DÁVILA

James Casebere’s photographs in The Poetic Dimension respond directly to Luis Barragán’s architectural masterpieces, including the Gilardi House, the Galvez House, and the architect’s home and studio in Mexico City. A seminal figure in the Pictures Generation, Casebere is known for constructing meticulously crafted models that he photographs, reimagining built environments through a conceptual lens. In these works, he engages with Barragán’s spaces not simply as formal subjects, but as sites of emotion and psychological depth. By subtly modifying architectural elements, adding apertures, altering proportions, and shifting light, Casebere imbues his images with an affective charge, deepening their contemplative quality. As he notes, Barragán’s architecture is “contemplative and solitary and beautiful, without the associations of confinement.” This poetic sensibility resonates strongly with Casebere’s practice, which has long sought to explore how architecture can reflect social structures, elicit emotional states, and inspire transformation.

Barragán’s architectural language has been a foundational influence for Jose Dávila, who trained as an architect before turning to sculpture. His materially rich works incorporate industrial elements, including ratchet straps and concrete juxtaposed with natural materials such as volcanic stone, balancing tension and gravity with a distinctive elegance. In these new sculptures, Dávila continues his investigation into structural equilibrium and formal restraint, using vibrant color and precarious construction to create works with both conceptual clarity and playful irreverence. Dávila’s engagement with Barragán’s legacy is most evident in his chromatic palette featuring bright hues of red, blue, and yellow which directly reference the architect’s structures and draw from the vernacular architecture of Mexico. Like Barragán, Dávila elevates raw, utilitarian materials into expressions of volume, color, and balance.

As Luis Barragán wrote, “Architecture is an art when one consciously or unconsciously creates aesthetic emotion in the atmosphere and when this environment produces well-being.” In the spirit of this philosophy, The Poetic Dimension foregrounds how both Casebere and Dávila translate architecture’s fundamental elements, light, form, color, material, into transcendent aesthetic experiences. Engaging in a deeply personal dialogue with Barragán’s legacy, they reveal how the built environment can become a vehicle for reflection.

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