ROBERT OVERBY
1971-1985
November 30, 1996 through January 12, 1997
Jessica Fredericks Gallery is pleased to announce an exhibition of 20 works of sculpture, painting, and drawing by ROBERT OVERBY. During the 1970’s Mr. Overby exhibited at John Weber Gallery, NY and Cirrus Gallery, LA. Since his death in 1993 his latex casts of architectural elements have been the subject of exhibitions at Sue Spaid Fine Art, LA, Burnett Miller Gallery, LA, and will be included in an upcoming exhibition curated by Ralph Rugoff at the Armand Hammer Museum. This will be the first exhibition to survey the artist’s various bodies of work, and the first time his work will be shown in New York since 1971.
While ROBERT OVERBY was renown for his graphic design work from the late ‘60s to the mid ‘80s, his art work from the same period was shown rarely. In fact, it was not until his memorial service, where his wife, the artist Linda Burnham, hung a selection of his work, that the Los Angeles art-world realized that the man they knew as an accomplished designer and collector was also an artist of unique scope and intensity, whose work prefigured much of what is being made today.
From July 1969 to August 1973 ROBERT OVERBY completed 336 works, all of which he documented in a small red book that he produced as a work of art. During this time he worked in a variety of mediums including Polyvinyl chloride and resin; concrete and steel; cast rubber; polyester resin and fiberglass; latex rubber; sewn canvas; and oil on canvas. Overby displayed a striking mastery and skill in each of these mediums, and despite the diversity and the range in subject matter, created a cohesive and obsessive exploration into issues that remained central to his work for the next twenty years. Referring consistently to the human form as described in the language of every day experience (be it the geometry of our architecture or the imaging of the media), Overby mapped out a world of absences. With his pornographic wood cut-outs of the late ‘70s and his ‘80s image works, he continued his investigation into the body and the inherent loss in its representation.
Jessica Fredericks Gallery is located at 504 West 22nd Street, between 10th and 11th Avenues. Gallery hours are Wednesday through Sunday, 11am to 6pm. For further information and/or photographs please contact the gallery by telephone at (212) 633-6555 or fax at (212) 367-9502.