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Untitled

A work made of oil on canvas.

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  • A work made of oil on canvas.

Date:

n.d.

Artist:

Gaylen Gerber
American, born 1955

About this artwork

For decades Gaylen Gerber has employed the supposedly “neutral” color gray, often making works that appear—but are in fact not—identical. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, he made uniformly sized square canvases that contain almost invisible still lifes rendered in three tones, or values, of gray on gray grounds. The longer one looks, the more the underlying image emerges.

Untitled and undated, these paintings exist only in the present tense. What can seem like flat or closed surfaces are not only unexpectedly nuanced but also inclusive and ongoing. Speaking of his work at the time, Gerber remarked, “For me, what started as negation … came to simultaneously include its contradiction: an acceptance of the significance of everything.

Status

Currently Off View

Department

Contemporary Art

Artist

Gaylen Gerber

Title

Untitled

Place

United States (Object made in)

Date  Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

1965–2011

Medium

Oil on canvas

Dimensions

96.5 × 96.5 cm (38 × 38 in.)

Credit Line

Gift of Olivier Renaud-Clement in honor of Helyn Goldenberg

Reference Number

2011.797

Extended information about this artwork

Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email . Information about image downloads and licensing is available here.

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