STEVE REBER | Operate on Low | May 14 – June 25, 2022

As an educator, I’m interested in sculpture in all its forms, permutations and cross disciplinary manifestations. My current work continues to explore 20th century architecture and design tropes while considering personal histories rooted in enchantment and apprehension. In addition, I’m interested in building objects and structures that investigate volumetric capacities, thresholds, and spatial relationships. I’m currently working on a larger scale to identify and locate the kinship of anatomy to design and building practices. — Steve Reber

Produced through the lens of an obsessive tinkerer—or possibly an eccentric model maker—each work in this show alludes to the mechanics of transformation. We see apparatuses suggesting athletic purpose or something found in a fancy gym; there are devices you might see in a futuristic Pilates studio; or a contraption used in a spotless auto body shop. You’ll even encounter a station at the gallery entrance that one might use to transact—changing money at a bank, paying for gas or picking up a coffee. Called Take your body with you, this piece has all the recognizable features of any purchase made during the past two years of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Plexiglas, although transparent, diminishes the possibility of an intimate exchange. The work in Operate on Low carries with it all the mystery of a brilliant Surrealist mind at work, but one fully engaged with the current state of the world. — Dan Devening

Steve Reber makes work that appears highly specific but leaves plenty of room to imagine and wonder. Like any beautifully designed thing whose function is destined, the new sculpture in Operate on Low invites us into a world choreographed to take us to that fantastical place where we are better looking, smarter and more refined. — Dan Devening