Sergey Brin & Larry Page 1 (404)

Davis Lisboa, Sergey Brin & Larry Page 1 (404), 2021. Oil on linen, 60 × 60 × 3.5 cm (23.6 × 23.6 × 1.38 in).

Inspired by a 2004 photograph of Sergey Brin and Larry Page before a press conference at the Frankfurt Book Fair, this painting approaches the founders of Google through the unstable language of portraiture. The subtitle “404” refers to the familiar HTTP error code for a page not found, introducing a layer of digital absence into an image otherwise tied to visibility, circulation, and technological optimism.

The work transforms a media image into a painted surface in which recognition and instability remain closely intertwined. Rather than simply reproducing the photograph, the painting slows it down, allowing gesture, atmosphere, and material presence to interrupt the speed and apparent clarity of the original source.

Part of the Full Color Period, the work adopts a square format that echoes the cubic structure of Davis Museum Barcelona, reinforcing the continuity between painting and institutional form. The image holds together portraiture, digital culture, and symbolic architecture within a tightly controlled pictorial field.

Belonging to The Painting Section from Davis Museum Barcelona, the painting forms part of the only section of the museum in which artworks are available for acquisition. Within this broader framework, it extends a lineage shaped by Marcel Duchamp’s Boîte-en-valise, Robert Filliou’s Galerie légitime, and Marcel Broodthaers’ Musée d’Art Moderne, Département des Aigles, where the museum itself becomes both subject and medium.