Secondary Market
CYRCLE
American, Founded 2010
CYRCLE is a Los Angeles art collective formed in 2010, working since 2012 as the duo of David Leavitt (Davey Detail) and David Torres (RABI). Moving between monumental murals, painting, sculpture and typography under the motto “We Never Die”, it stages oppositions of power, myth and meaning.
Biography
CYRCLE — often written with a full stop, CYRCLE. — formed in Los Angeles in 2010. Its original line-up included Devin Liston, who left in 2012; the collective then continued as the duo of David Leavitt, known as Davey Detail, and David Torres, known as RABI. Their motto, “We Never Die”, gave its name to their 2011 exhibition at Design Matters in Los Angeles.
Murals as manifestos
CYRCLE first drew attention with large walls: the 11,000-square-foot MAGIC IS REAL! at Bedrock Studios in Echo Park (2012), a Hollywood mural made with the musician Woodkid (2013), a wall in Wynwood painted during Art Basel week in Miami in December 2013, and Return in Aalborg, Denmark (2015). Their imagery combines graphic symbols, lettering and figures drawn from myth to stage pairs of opposites: something and nothing, conquest and division, power and its downfall.
Exhibition cycles
In the studio, the duo worked in themed cycles. Capture the Flag!, shown at Underdogs Gallery in Lisbon and Above Second in Hong Kong in 2013, returned to the founding myths of America. OVERTHRONE: POORING REIGN! at StolenSpace Gallery (2014) was their first solo exhibition in London. NOTHING EXISTS!, presented at Station16 Gallery in Montreal during the 2015 MURAL Festival, turned to more philosophical, symbol-driven objects, some glowing in the dark, and came with a limited companion book. Father Time belongs to that moment; Station16 also published a screenprint under the same title.