james gilbert

James Gilbert is a Los Angeles based artist who works across mediums creating drawings, installations with video, and performative art. These works comment on social themes including identity and anonymity in mass media. Gilbert has exhibited nationally and internationally at galleries and museums in the U.S. and Asia. Recent 2008 solo exhibitions include: “(Don’t) Want to be Anonymous”, Los Angeles and “I Know Everything about You and We Haven’t Met”, Dallas. “The Privacy of Underpants”, Seoul and “The Privacy of Underpants- Part II”, Beijing included a catalog with essay by Charissa Terranova. He will be an artist in residence at Centraltak,The University of Texas during fall 2009.

James Gilbert is interested in moments that have influence on our identity, whether they are subtle interpersonal gestures or larger global issues. He is fascinated by news, politics, personalities, and cultural events that co-exist at the same time, perhaps not directly inhabiting the same physical space, but colliding within the tremendous amount of information that we expose ourselves to daily. This global mash up can define a period in our personal and collective history, and an identity.

He considers each work to be documentation of current ideas and actions while also looking toward our future behavior. These works reflect the relationship between identity and privacy, social networks, 24-hour news cycles, immense obsession with celebrity and pop culture, fear, economy, and death. His work communicates his concern, social engagement, skepticism, and humor - our perviness, over-sharing recklessness, opinions, and cultural chronology.

Working across mediums he makes installations with video and sound, sculpture, drawing and performance and has exhibited nationally and internationally at galleries and museums in the U.S., Asia, Europe and South America. He is based in Los Angeles.

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