April Gertler's work consists of mainly photography and collage. This primarily 2D artist has been working and living in Germany and is the founder of Project Berlin, a hybrid art academy and artist's residency program and spoke in a lecture given at UNR on Thursday October 13th.
The artist's "38 Project" came out of a need for more freedom in her work, from the more serious side of her career and pressure to produce something larger at the age of 38, thus the "38 Project" came to be. The premise was to produce a piece each week, post it to the project blog at the same time and sell the piece for $38. She used this project to create very personal entries and one of her goals was to make art that was more accessible- intentionally keeping the cost low, though I suspect the themes were more accessible as well- whether intentional or not. Though initially it seemed she wanted to introduce more freedom into her process- in some ways, it seems she introduced more pressure and confinement on herself than she intended. Overall, I think the pieces feel very fun, lighthearted and whimsical. She conveys humor with simple arrangements of the photos and text.
The real importance of this work is how it then influenced her body of work from this pivoting point and led to other works such as, "They Are What They Seem". In this project she developed personas for these people in the photographs she didn't know. Gathering photographs from albums acquired at flea markets, she experienced the feeling of having met one of the people in the photographs, only to discover in fact that it was a subject from a previous photo she used in another piece. In subsequent pieces she takes more risks with her pieces and she even mentions letting go of some of the "craft" in her work, not being so concerned with whether she created the photographs she was working with herself and she was using many more found photographs and objects to work with. She continues with humor and pushes herself to develop commentary on women in society and "women's work"; in many pieces she incorporates thread sewn into the composition to represent these ideas. This thread has become not only a texture, a line and color within her work but has come to represent the "thread of life" and an homage to women and what is known as "women's work" in society.
In July of 2008, she went to Spain for a 2 week residency and worked with families she met to interview them and gather and scan their family photos for her to develop into highly personal pieces of work based on her interactions with the families. Here she played more with scale, edges, holes, and more interesting composition on each page.
Gertler does not take materials with her when she goes o residencies; only scissors, thread, and matboard accompany her as she expects to gather the materials at the location in order to respond to the environment and surroundings she is in. In her Ireland residency, this proved a challenge as the materials were scarce and she had very limited options, however, this seemed to work well for her work as she was forced to use what she had and this appeared to encourage her to continue the social commentary regarding women in society and women's work. Her primary source material was an older book of women moving and posing in various positions.
Gertler is creative in her development of titles for her works; she claims not to overthink or spend much time on them but whether intentional or not, she seems keenly aware of topics and language that work quite well with the work she creates.
Interestingly, Gertler no longer uses photographs from the 40s, 50s, and 60s because of the nostalgia they conjure. She also mentioned that as a Jewish woman living in Germany, she has come across many photographs depicting Nazism which has been difficult to wrestle with, not only because of the topic itself but also she has many survivors in her family. She is confronted daily with these "layers", at times wondering why she lives in Germany. Her story is compelling and interesting we don't see these themes and thoughts emerging from the art she presented. As she discussed this particular point, it was as if she was confessing a part of her that she may not have been comfortable introducing into her art. She is clearly extremely passionate about Germany and it's culture with her involvement and dedication to the Picture Berlin program. It will be interesting to watch to see how or if this topics will eventually come through in her work.
Overall, what Gertler works to achieve in her art is fairly successful. Her artist's book, "Damp Patches" seems like a culmination of the various projects she undertook and the aesthetic quality of the printing using the risograph technique contributed to an accomplished final piece.
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