He's known as the man who ate the $120,000 banana. It happened in 2019 at Art Basel Miami when Datuna stood in front of a work of art by Maurizio Cattelan titled “Comedian” comprising a banana duct-taped to the wall. Datuna pulled the banana from its polyethylene embrace and ate it. The performative act stirred controversy and pandemonium and stormed social media. Yet, this quiet, self-effacing artist merely did what he does best, understand conceptual art. One conceptual work of art that pushed boundaries plants the seed for another iteration of boundary-pushing work. Enter David Datuna’s “Color American Flag” assemblage.

David Datuna’s retinal compositions evoke social, political, and cultural identification. They call to question how accurately we measure our bearings and our visual acuity. Taking a ubiquitous accessory used as a vehicle for adjusting optics, Datuna uses prescription glasses as a portal for both distortion and focus. In doing so, the artist stages a field where fragmentation and multifaceted effects serve as a unifying force.

Wiring the lenses together, the artist sets a visual field to illustrate how optics always amplify rather than resolve tension. By superimposing the lenses on painted substrates, the artist accentuates the visual tension between the viewer and the work itself. Upon close examination, the viewer discovers images of political figureheads collaged to the back panel. In positioning the images, colors, and contours of the American flag under the scrim of lenses, the work celebrates the complexity and power of the visual experience. The web of interlocking lenses symbolizes the network of perception expressing multiple points of view. Laying the framework for viewers to arrive at different points of view about the country.

Olafur Eliasson once quipped “If there is one thing we don’t believe in anymore, it’s the possibility of being emancipated, freed from all attachment, blissfully unaware of the consequences of our actions.” Perhaps Datuna’s work invites viewers to engage in an active, responsible way to promote unity, freedom, or justice by widening one’s purview.

Datuna exhibits widely in the US, Europe, and Asia, and is well represented in important private collections worldwide.