Continuing Education Blog

SVA alum Paul Gabrielli  is showing new sculptures in Generally, his second solo show at LES gallery Invisible-Exports*.   Paul’s handcrafted decoys are transubstantiations of objects so ordinary that they may as well be, well, invisible. But when he regenerates them, then fuses together this-then-that ensembles, they transmit cognitive dissonance and uncannily activate memories of intimate encounters with the Familiar.  Jasper Johns recommended, “Take an object. Do something to it. Do something else to it. Do something else to it.”  Paul Gabrielli labors as if to say, “Take an object.  Make it from something else.  Stick it to something else made from something else.”

A fan of Paul’s work for years, I chatted with him to learn more about his show.

MB: First, what strikes me about the sculptures in the front of the gallery is how discreet they are. One could excuse any visitor for accidentally breezing past Untitled (Pole) or Untitled (Camera). Which is why it’s intriguing that many of these same sculptures invoke alert systems and urgent communication. There’s the intercom in Pole, the compounded alarms in Untitled (Alarm Bell 1), and even the flashlight atop Camera. Is there something we need to know?

PG: That’s a good observation. There is a paradox in the way they present themselves versus what they communicate (or fail to). However, I don’t think the work is intentionally clever or trying to be sly. I think they are a result of me working through and trying to understand some things for myself. Therefore, they appear awkward and express something rather inconclusive and puzzling.

MB: Yes, they are inconclusive, despite the highly resolved degree of craftsmanship. The associations between objects are inviting, yet elusive. Alone, the objects could be emblematic; in tandem with others, I start to examine their interaction with each other. Should a viewer accept the objects literally? Or are the objects more like surrogates for body parts? Robert Gober’s recurrent sink drains, for example, comes to my mind. Sarah Lucas’ bulbs and buckets do not, however, because they seem more aggressively direct than your ensembles.

PG: Those specific Gober sculptures are among the earliest works of art that really made me feel “normal.” I remember thinking that it made so much sense for someone to want remake the drain in their shower, to understand its Ins and Outs, its beginnings. I think it’s a very tender sculpture because it’s about someone understanding another’s longing to understand.

About the literal vs the symbolic: I guess it’s a bit of both. I think for the most part [the sculptures] should be understood for what they actually are. With some sculptures, I have a specific idea of what this or that object represents to me, but it’s never one thing and I don’t want them to represent only that one thing. I think what is more often the case is that the objects are suggestive of other things. And often times, they have to do with the body. For example the sculpture Untitled (Pole), with the intercom, makes me think of the relationship between someone speaking and the steam that is in the pipe – which of course, then, leads you to the thought “breath.”

In terms of seeing the objects literally; that’s important to me because I think the work is very much about a failure to understand what the objects are rather than them revealing some sort of coded message. In terms of perception, I’m interested in a simultaneous understanding/misunderstanding. You are immediately able to identify the objects because they are very common but at they same time your previous understanding of them alludes you. Or maybe you never really thought too much about a soap dispenser. I think they should hold you in a position on the verge of clarity and comprehension. It’s sort of the step before you pick and choose a meaning.

MB: Your ideas about perception and reception bring up “the body” in many ways, inevitably making us conscious of intimate relations to things and people around us.

PG: I think they are kind of about trying to experience intimacy. Take the alarm bells, for instance: you find yourself looking at this very familiar thing and thinking about your personal relationship to it, if there is one. And that’s also why it is important that they are all very generic objects. They are common and often found in public spaces. So I think trying to understand how you as an individual relate to them is kind of where I want them to take you. In a way it’s about conformity, maybe identity. How do I fit myself into what already exists in the world?

I’m not really interested in saying “intercom = mouth, flashlight = eyes and then, therefore, this means gays are repressed,” or whatever it may be. I think certain elements are intentionally obscured or left out in order to retain a certain amount of surprise and even mystery for myself. But perhaps they don’t say anything, which is a strong possibility. I think that’s also a good way to look at them. It’s important to understand that in a film blood is actually ketchup (or whatever it is they use nowadays). Once you know that, the illusion becomes that much stronger. The objects have to stubbornly remain themselves and very literal in order to see past them further.

MB: In Untitled (Pole), component parts are separate, while most of its neighbors are densely compounded, stuck to each other. Also, I like how your words just generated the invisible material of the steam; that reminds me of Robert Barry’s Inert Gas Series (1969), except that your steam doesn’t actually exist in the sculpture (right?), so it’s as imaginary as Tom Friedman’s Untitled (A Curse). And there are “pipe pieces” for every generation: Louise Bourgeois’ Twosome (1991), Nancy Holt’s Sun Tunnels (1973-6), Carsten Höller’s slides at the Tate Modern, and even Dan Colen’s halfpipe at Gagosian, diasappointing as that show was. Still, all of my gratuitous references can only drum up a loose legacy; there’s no reason to believe that they have any bearing on your work, which is intensely personal and built by necessity. What’s more important, I think, is that the Pipe piece fits into a group of objects fashioned as conduits, not dead-end, self-reflexive boxes on the floor. The Pipe channels steam and the intercom sound. The soap dispenser empties its contents on demand, the camera transmits or even records, and the Handrail shuttles someone through a corridor.

However, the smaller sculptures in the rear of the gallery, all immaculately detailed, actually do feel self-reflexive. The plastic packaging on each one seems like a dignifying space, like a pedestal or vitrine, ensuring that its contents remain rarefied and protected, not common. Have you changed modes there? Do they, in a different way from the other objects, hold someone in that step before picking and choosing a meaning?

PG: I think the way you look at these works is very different to other works in the show. As you say, they are much more self-contained, and I think, less confrontational. In a way, the objects that would become the primary part of a sculpture are now the subjects of these sculptures. It’s sort of one step removed. Actually, I guess I added a step in order to create more distance from them.

In terms of perception, these things don’t already exist in the world. Even though they reference toys or products in packaged form, I invented them. So that initial familiarity is not there as clearly as it is in the other works. However, I do think in terms of subject matter they deal with similar ideas. To me, they are still about intimacy and desire; specifically, desiring things that you already have.

MB: What about the fact that they are “unique,” unlike the mass-manufactured clones in the front of the gallery?

PG: That’s strange to me because of how contradictory it is. They become “unique” as a result of me trying to idealize and generalize them. In my mind they are the perfect scrap of metal and piece of wood. I like to image that if someone were to say “think of a rock” we would all imagine the same generic image of a rock in our minds. Then that rock is the one which appears in the sculpture.

PG (cont.): These very base objects, things that you have around you and are kind of worthless, become rarefied as you mentioned and desirable because of the way they are presented. By putting them in blister packs they become off-limits but also about ownership. I don’t mean actually buying them – I realize that they could be a sour critique of the art market or consumerism in general, but what I mean has more to do with desire and possession. Maybe making people realize that they are feeling desire when they are looking at them. So, you know, something more romantic. Perhaps that’s why I was concerned with them being “pretty” and “seductive,” whereas all the other work is bland and colorless.

Because of the difference in the way you have to look and experience these sculptures, I knew they had to be kept separate from the other work. They do, as you say, use a different language or mode of communication.

But getting back to your first question in this interview; your observation brings up something that I think runs through all the work, including the “toys.” Everything is presented very clearly and in a very concise manner, yet they remain allusive and resist clear interpretations. It’s like if someone is yelling in your face but you still can’t seem to understand them.

*Invisible-Exports is also the gallery where I show my work.

Written by: Michael Bilsborough
Posted in: Events, Exhibitions
Tags: Invisible-Exports, Paul Gabrielli, Robert Gober