Dave Greber's “Stillives II: Vignette" at the Figge Art Museum -- through January 12.
Through Saturday, January 12
Figge Art Museum, 225 West Second Street, Davenport IA
Featuring 200 layers, including clips of mugs breaking, splashing paint, unfurling tablecloths, and his dog and cat strolling through the frame, video artist Dave Greber's Stilllives II: Vignette is on display at Davenport's Figge Art Museum through January 12, this work inspired by the act of setting a dinner table projected on the floor as though you are looking down at a table that's being continuously reset.
Greber uses the fast-paced visual vocabulary of the digital world to create mesmerizing video works, and considers his videos “moving paintings” composed of bright colors, fast cuts, and repetitive imagery. The 41-year-old artist began exhibiting video installations and sculptures as a member of New Orleans–based art collective The Front in 2009, with his works featured in Prospect 1.5, part of the Prospect New Orleans triennial, curated by Dan Cameron. In the historic French Quarter site Madame Johns Legacy, he constructed a four-channel video installation relating tarot card divination and the international television show Deal or No Deal. C24 Gallery's inaugural exhibition Double Crescent: Art from Istanbul and New Orleans featured an installation by Greber curated by Prospect New Orleans founder Dan Cameron, with the show including both emerging artists and established artists from New Orleans and Istanbul in a 9,000-square-foot space in Chelsea, New York. Greber also exhibited solo shows featuring video installations and objects with the Arthur Roger Gallery in New Orleans: Stilllives, Peekaboo, Still Brothy, and 7000-Day Candles.
A single-channel piece by Greber was featured in Lorna Mills' Ways of Something, a collection of one-minute videos by 113 web-based artists compiled and curated by Mills and released in March of 2015. It is a contemporary remake of John Berger’s 1972 BBC documentary Ways of Seeing, and the resulting piece was collected and featured as part of the Whitney Museum's exhibition of video work, Dreamlands: Immersive Cinema and Art, 1905–2016. State of the Art, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art’s national survey of artists, featured Greber's large-scale video installations, while his solo exhibition The Casebearer was presented at The Ogden Museum of Southern Art. Now on display at the Figge, Greber's video-art project Stilllives II: Vignette was featured in an exhibition at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, and its creator was also commissioned by the MTA Arts & Design to create Skyyys, a 52-channel video installation that played throughout the Fulton Center Transportation Hub, in New York City from July 2018 to March 2019. It won the Silver Apex award at the Digital Signage Expo in 2019, which recognizes achievement in the installation of digital displays and interactive technology.
Dave Greber's Stilllives II: Vignette will be on display in the Davenport museum's Gallery 206 through January 12, with regular museum hours 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Tuesdays through Saturdays (10 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Thursdays) and noon to 5 p.m. on Sundays. Museum admission is $4-10, though thanks to the generous sponsorship of Cal and Jill Werner, museum admission is free throughout the month of July. For more information, call (563)326-7804 and visit FiggeArtMuseum.org.
