Art Fair
Art Basel, Basel
Gaylen Gerber with Leah Ke Yi Zheng and Martin Kippenberger
Booth L16, Hall 2.1
June 19 – 22, 2025
Gaylen Gerber, Support, n.d., Oil paint on ceremonial headdress, Bamun People, Cameroon, hemp, leather, cotton, hair, on base, 20th century, 45.7 × 27.9 × 20.3 cm
Gaylen Gerber with Leah Ke Yi Zheng, Support/Untitled (scream), n.d., 2019 – 2021, Ink on silk on canvas, 96.5 × 96.4 × 2.5 cm overall
Martin Kippenberger, Model Interconti, 1987, 1973 Gerhard Richter painting as tabletop, wood, metal, 32 × 79.5 × 59 cm
Gaylen Gerber has included a range of distinctive coverings in the installation for Layr at Art Basel. The work that Gerber has assembled for the booth emphasizes art as a whole rather than presenting it as a collection of individual expressions. His use of head coverings for example, as a form of mask, offers different levels of protection, social significance, cultural customs, and other affiliations. In many ways they are employed as a means to level or balance power in a relationship and within culture, acknowledging that the act of covering carries symbolic meaning. The forms of these coverings are often prescribed by tradition, as were their uses, but the artworks presented here may be seen as part of the larger body of contemporary practice with the gray monochrome acting as a part of a shifting of the cultural balance of power away from individual artworks and towards the relationships between the ensemble of artworks as a whole.