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.
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I think of each pair of underpants as an intimate portrait. They are an examination of the large amount of intimate and private information we willingly share through social media, reality television and 24-hour news cycles - the immense fascination with celebrity and pop culture. Each pair of underpants is sewn from transparent industrial plastic then embellished with beads, zippers or sequins, like layers of experience, personality and behavior. The underpants expose our most intimate information – revealing our perviness, opinions, quirkiness, sense of humor and a narrative of our culture.
