Gregor Podnar Vienna is pleased to present Robert Gabris | Bodyshop, the artist’s first show in the gallery.
You are cordially invited to the opening on Thursday, March 30th, 6 to 9pm.
The exhibition will feature Robert Gabris’ newest cycle of works on paper, single sheets as well as compositions of four and six – their central theme being what the artists describes as the workshop of his body. “The paper is my skin, filled with muscles, bones and organs folded on top of each other in a supposedly logical order that has been given to me.” In the Bodyshop series, coloured pencils, scalpel and scissors are artist’s tools to cut deeper under the skin and understand anatomy more precisely. “By dissecting, I autopsy my organs piece by piece, chaos is created.”
Speaking of the content of his work, Robert Gabris outlines it as a critical confrontation with identity issues, especially of the groups marginalised by the society. “The starting point of my work deals with new experimental forms of drawing as resistance to exclusion and racism.” Focusing on the fragments and inner structure of his body and indirectly on a social body in general, too, he goes even further, from a victimised position within common discourses of identity to an aesthetic form that liberates us from current ideologies to more emancipatory forms of expression.
Born in Slovakia in 1986, Robert Gabris works and lives in Vienna. He graduated from the Academy for Applied Arts in Bratislava in 2010 and received a postgraduate diploma from the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts in 2014. His solo shows include White Cinema in the Museum of Romani Culture, Brno (CZ), Inventing Human: Sketches at the Strabag Kunstforum, Vienna, Insectopia at the Villa Romana, Florence (IT). Apart from participation in a number of group exhibitions, Robert Gabris took part in the last edition of Documenta in Kassel. He has been awarded the Strabag Recognition Art Award in 2021 and the Belvedere 21 Art Award in 2022. He will hold his solo show in Belvedere in autumn.
The exhibition will remain on view until May 20th. Gallery hours are Tuesday through Friday, 11am to 6pm, Saturday 11am to 4pm. For more information, please contact the gallery at vienna@gregorpodnar.com.
The show is featured in Art Forum’s Critic’s Picks section, a select review of shows worldwide:
artforum.com