Rome

Gaylen Gerber

November 25, 2017 – February 17, 2018

Gaylen Gerber, 2017Installation viewLayr, Rome

Gaylen Gerber, 2017
Installation view
Layr, Rome

Gaylen Gerber, 2017Installation viewLayr, Rome

Gaylen Gerber, 2017
Installation view
Layr, Rome

Gaylen Gerber, 2017Installation viewLayr, Rome

Gaylen Gerber, 2017
Installation view
Layr, Rome

Gaylen Gerber, 2017Installation viewLayr, Rome

Gaylen Gerber, 2017
Installation view
Layr, Rome

(left)Gaylen GerberSupport, n. d.Oil paint on cinematic prop of severed ear from The Hughes Brothers’ Dead Presidents, 19952 x 6 x 4 cm(middle)Gaylen GerberSupport, n. d.Oil paint on Colt 45 Malt Liquor 16 fl. oz. can, United States, printed aluminum, paper, 21st century19.5 x 11.5 x 18.8 cm(right)Gaylen GerberSupport, n. d.Oil paint on fragment of 3400 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA, concrete, based mount, 20th century23.5 x 17.5 x 19 cm

(left)
Gaylen Gerber
Support, n. d.
Oil paint on cinematic prop of severed ear from The Hughes Brothers’ Dead Presidents, 1995
2 × 6 × 4 cm

(middle)
Gaylen Gerber
Support, n. d.
Oil paint on Colt 45 Malt Liquor 16 fl. oz. can, United States, printed aluminum, paper, 21st century
19.5 × 11.5 × 18.8 cm

(right)
Gaylen Gerber
Support, n. d.
Oil paint on fragment of 3400 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA, concrete, based mount, 20th century
23.5 × 17.5 × 19 cm

(left)Gaylen GerberSupport, n. d.Oil paint on cinematic prop of severed ear from The Hughes Brothers’ Dead Presidents, 19952 x 6 x 4 cmSupport, n. d.Gaylen GerberOil paint on Colt 45 Malt Liquor 16 fl. oz. can, United States, printed aluminum, paper, 21st century19.5 x 11.5 x 18.8 cm

(left)
Gaylen Gerber
Support, n. d.
Oil paint on cinematic prop of severed ear from The Hughes Brothers’ Dead Presidents, 1995
2 × 6 × 4 cm

Support, n. d.
Gaylen Gerber
Oil paint on Colt 45 Malt Liquor 16 fl. oz. can, United States, printed aluminum, paper, 21st century
19.5 × 11.5 × 18.8 cm

Gaylen GerberSupport, n. d.Oil paint on fragment of 3400 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA, concrete, based mount, 20th century23.5 x 17.5 x 19 cm

Gaylen Gerber
Support, n. d.
Oil paint on fragment of 3400 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA, concrete, based mount, 20th century
23.5 × 17.5 × 19 cm

Gaylen Gerber, 2017Installation viewLayr, Rome

Gaylen Gerber, 2017
Installation view
Layr, Rome

Gaylen Gerber, 2017Installation viewLayr, Rome

Gaylen Gerber, 2017
Installation view
Layr, Rome

Gaylen Gerber, 2017Installation viewLayr, Rome

Gaylen Gerber, 2017
Installation view
Layr, Rome

Gaylen GerberSupport, n. d.Oil paint on 12 fl. oz. aluminum can, United States, Anheuser-Busch, printed aluminum, 21st century13 x 7.6 x 6.3 cm

Gaylen Gerber
Support, n. d.
Oil paint on 12 fl. oz. aluminum can, United States, Anheuser-Busch, printed aluminum, 21st century
13 × 7.6 × 6.3 cm

(left)Gaylen GerberSupport, n. d.Oil paint on tea bowl, Saga Prefecture, Japan, Yobitsugi Karatsu ware, early 18th century Momoyama – early Edo period6.3 x 10.8 x 10.1 cm(right)Gaylen GerberSupport, n. d.Oil paint on Coca-Cola Aluminum contour bottle, designed by Turner Duckworth, United States, printed aluminum, 200718.4 x 6.3 x 6.3 cm

(left)
Gaylen Gerber
Support, n. d.
Oil paint on tea bowl, Saga Prefecture, Japan, Yobitsugi Karatsu ware, early 18th century Momoyama – early Edo period
6.3 × 10.8 × 10.1 cm

(right)
Gaylen Gerber
Support, n. d.
Oil paint on Coca-Cola Aluminum contour bottle, designed by Turner Duckworth, United States, printed aluminum, 2007
18.4 × 6.3 × 6.3 cm

Gaylen Gerber, 2017Installation viewLayr, Rome

Gaylen Gerber, 2017
Installation view
Layr, Rome

Gaylen Gerber, 2017Installation viewLayr, Rome

Gaylen Gerber, 2017
Installation view
Layr, Rome

Gaylen Gerber, 2017Installation viewLayr, Rome

Gaylen Gerber, 2017
Installation view
Layr, Rome

Gaylen Gerber, 2017Installation viewLayr, Rome

Gaylen Gerber, 2017
Installation view
Layr, Rome

Gaylen GerberSupport, n. d.Oil paint on Lipico (helmet mask), Makonde people, Tanzania, wood, pigment, 20th century21.5 x 25.5 x 17.5 cm

Gaylen Gerber
Support, n. d.
Oil paint on Lipico (helmet mask), Makonde people, Tanzania, wood, pigment, 20th century
21.5 × 25.5 × 17.5 cm

Gaylen GerberSupport, n. d.Oil paint on sādhu trumpet (Hindu trumpet), Nepal, horn, based mount, late 19th - early 20th century14 x 20 x 5 cm

Gaylen Gerber
Support, n. d.
Oil paint on sādhu trumpet (Hindu trumpet), Nepal, horn, based mount, late 19th - early 20th century
14 × 20 × 5 cm

Gaylen GerberSupport, n. d.Oil paint on Samanid bowl with Kufic inscription الحرص علانیه الفقر (Envy is a sign of poverty), Khurasan, northeastern Iran, present-day Afghanistan and Uzbekistan, earthenware black slip painted on white slip under transparent glaze, 819-1005 AD25 x 9 cm

Gaylen Gerber
Support, n. d.
Oil paint on Samanid bowl with Kufic inscription الحرص علانیه الفقر (Envy is a sign of poverty), Khurasan, northeastern Iran, present-day Afghanistan and Uzbekistan, earthenware black slip painted on white slip under transparent glaze, 819-1005 AD
25 × 9 cm

Gaylen Gerber, 2017Installation viewLayr, Rome

Gaylen Gerber, 2017
Installation view
Layr, Rome

Gaylen Gerber, 2017Installation viewLayr, Rome

Gaylen Gerber, 2017
Installation view
Layr, Rome

Gaylen Gerber, 2017Installation viewLayr, Rome

Gaylen Gerber, 2017
Installation view
Layr, Rome

Gaylen GerberSupport, n. d.Oil paint on khôrô figure, Lobedu culture, Limpopo Province, South Africa, wood, based mount, 20th century119.5 x 17.5 x 17.5 cm

Gaylen Gerber
Support, n. d.
Oil paint on khôrô figure, Lobedu culture, Limpopo Province, South Africa, wood, based mount, 20th century
119.5 × 17.5 × 17.5 cm

Gaylen GerberSupport, n.d.Oil paint on fragment of a corrugated bowl, Anasazi (Ancient Pueblo Peoples), Southwest United States, earthenware800-1200 AD10 x 20 x 15 cm

Gaylen Gerber
Support, n.d.
Oil paint on fragment of a corrugated bowl, Anasazi (Ancient Pueblo Peoples), Southwest United States, earthenware
800-1200 AD
10 × 20 × 15 cm

Gaylen GerberSupport, n.d.Oil paint on fragment of a corrugated bowl, Anasazi (Ancient Pueblo Peoples), Southwest United States, earthenware800-1200 AD10 x 20 x 15 cm

Gaylen Gerber
Support, n.d.
Oil paint on fragment of a corrugated bowl, Anasazi (Ancient Pueblo Peoples), Southwest United States, earthenware
800-1200 AD
10 × 20 × 15 cm

Gaylen GerberSupport, n.d.Oil paint on fragment of a corrugated bowl, Anasazi (Ancient Pueblo Peoples), Southwest United States, earthenware800-1200 AD10 x 20 x 15 cm

Gaylen Gerber
Support, n.d.
Oil paint on fragment of a corrugated bowl, Anasazi (Ancient Pueblo Peoples), Southwest United States, earthenware
800-1200 AD
10 × 20 × 15 cm

Gaylen GerberSupport, n. d.Oil paint on drug spatula, Chimu culture, northern Peru, carved llama bone, turquoise, based mount, ca. 900 to 1450 AD17.5 x 3.2 cm

Gaylen Gerber
Support, n. d.
Oil paint on drug spatula, Chimu culture, northern Peru, carved llama bone, turquoise, based mount, ca. 900 to 1450 AD
17.5 × 3.2 cm

An American artist once asserted “The great force of history comes from the fact that we carry it within us, are unconsciously controlled by it in many ways, and history is literally present in all that we do.”¹ In this exhibition Gerber presents a number of artworksthat press the relationship between the loss of traditional orientations and the oscillating sense of joie de vivre that often remains and in doing so he addresses the ways in which we perceive expression and understand established records.

Gerber’s work relies on other artworks or artifacts and our sense of the history associated with them for much of its meaning. His work has long focused on the normative aspects of visual language: the way that we, as part of a shared culture, accept certain forms, colors and situations as institutional, or we take them for granted as impartial common ground. These visual norms act as grounds for all other forms of expression and we use them to register difference and create meaning. In some instances Gerber’s work has literally been the ground for other artists’ expression and in turn, he also uses other artists’ work as a normative ground against which his, and our own expressions can be recognized. As a result, everything in the exhibition is acknowledged as alternately both support and expression.

In Gerber’s Supports the original representation has been replaced with a homogeneous value. For example, the polychrome pictorial glazed surface that helped define the Kashiki bowl from the late Tokugawa or Edo Period Japan has been replaced by an alternate surface. The same is true for Support, a sādhu trumpet from late 19th or early 20th century Nepal, leaving just the homogeneous value of the painted surface visible. In both instances, the everyday is reaffirmed but the implications are existential. The associations of this surface are explicit in the history of the monochromeand alternate aspects of the Supports become readily apparent.

The result is an inversion of established ideas of art as a place to locate history within a particular context. Artworks and artifacts that are most often seen as records of the past: a Lokapala guardian figure from the Tang Dynasty in China; an Impossible Bottle from the 20th century United States; a drug spatula from the Chimu culture in Northern Peru, are understood in the moment of their perception. The power that artworks and artifacts from the past have to evoke delight, distress, empathy – a range of emotions – is a reflection of their continued effectiveness, and because of the reversal of the figure and ground all of the Supports share a standard surface that also functions to reflect a clear image not only of our relationship to the past but of the present.

Gaylen Gerber (American b. 1955) has exhibited widely including projects at Kunsthaus Bregenz, Bregenz, Austria; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, New York; Kunstverein Ruhr, Essen, Germany; Museé d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean, Luxembourg; The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois; Neues Museum Weserburg Bremen, Bremen, Germany; Kunsthalle Bern, Bern, Switzerland; and the Museé des Beaux-Arts, Dijon, France among others.

¹ James Baldwin, The Price of the Ticket: Collected Nonfiction, 1948-1985

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