Layr

Layr is pleased to present an exhibition by the American artist Gaylen Gerber. Gerber creates expressive, often revealing, artworks and situations that incorporate the work of other makers, sometimes by foregrounding them and other times by seemingly obscuring them. Gerber’s practice has for decades been characterized by fusing his own work with that of others, making them inseparable but equally present. This match among authors remains palpable in all his work, where viewers encounter forms that carry immediate as well as existing meanings simultaneously. In this exhibition, Gerber continues his paradoxical strategy of inversion and considers a balancing of history, presence, and the continual flux in interpretation of the world surrounding us. In doing so, images of entertainers, props and plinths mix with other representations that populate everyday life. Throughout the exhibition, there are things that feel sensorially present and things that feel intangibly absent. In each instance, the viewer’s engagement is foregrounded as issues of existence and personal identity are framed in a way that support divergent views contingent on performance, theater, and dark humor.

The unannounced introduction of two walls dividing the exhibition space changed the inflection of the exhibition as it was intended. Posed with this change in position, the artist decided to install the exhibition as it was intended and acknowledge the architectural intervention as central to the character of the exhibition.

Gaylen Gerber has exhibited widely including surveys of his work at the Arts Club of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois (2018); the Museé d'Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean, Luxembourg (2006); and The Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois (1992); monographic and cooperative projects include Oslo Biennalen 2019-2024, Oslo, Norway; Kunsthaus Bregenz, Bregenz, Austria (2016); Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, New York (2014); The Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, Illinois (2013); Museé des Beaux-Arts, Dijon, France (2005); The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois (2002); Kunstverein Munich, Munich, Germany (1996); Documenta IX, Kassel, Germany (1992). This is Gerber’s fourth monographic exhibition with the gallery.