Dave Allen’s artistic practice is shaped by a sustained engagement with music.

In his work, music is less understood as a finished form than as something transmitted, appropriated, and transformed. Processes of translation, repetition, and textualization play a central role, linking sound, language, and image.

CANON TO THE HAMMER OF THE GODS addresses the formation of myth and the contemporary handling of cultural narratives. Starting from the motif of a threefold drumbeat or hammer strike, Allen connects different historical and cultural references into a new and deliberately associative narrative structure. What matters here is not historical certainty, but the question of how myths emerge, are passed on, and are continually reinterpreted.

The accompanying works likewise revolve around imitation, appropriation, and transmission. In Allen’s practice, music therefore functions not simply as a medium of representation, but as a form of interaction and communication. His works show how profoundly cultural meanings are shaped by repetition, interpretation, and medial displacement.