GUILLERMO BERT: The BARCODE SERIES: Blurring the Boundary between Cultures and Commodities
May 17 – August 2, 2009
On Sunday, May 16, 2009 MOLAA will open the third in a series of exhibitions to be presented in The Lexus Gallery, sponsored by Lexus since November of 2008.
The solo exhibition of recent works of art by Los Angeles based Chilean artist Guillermo Bert is titled, The Bar Codes Series. The mixed media works enhanced with gold-leaf and glossy candy enamel paint are defined as the Bar Code Series and reflect Bert’s interest to explore concepts of consumerism based on political and social ideals relevant to today’s globalized world.
The artist Guillermo Bert states, “In this global environment where technology and the mass exchange of information has blurred the boundaries of modern civilization, I am interested in the universal Bar Code for the “branding” of information as a standardized mechanism used to define certain products.” The products of Bert’s bar-codes are the ideals embodied within the representation of American government buildings and national symbols of North American culture and ancient Andean ceremonial relics of South America culture. By fusing these forms with the Bar Code patterns—or the Universal Pricing Code technology— the subject is reduced to a single word or message that provokes a political commentary and social questioning about the price of democracy, and the value of justice in our contemporary time.
The Bar Code Series is constructed by burning the images on wood or plastic or board surfaces with industrial techniques--digital technology, computer graphics and laser cutters—over which the artist applies a layer of gold-leaf or red, white and blue glossy candy enamel paints. The color pallets of red, white and blue reference American nationalism (secularism) and the gold-leaf process references the catholic or universal intent of religiosity (the sacred). Art critic Peter Frank states, “What holds these works together on a plane of discourse higher than mere political commentary is their beauty and the fact that their collective message—your life and everything in it is quantifiable and even “brandable”—is powerful, and so true.”
Guillermo Bert was born in Chile in 1959 where he studied art at the Catholic University of Santiago. He has resided in Los Angeles for the past two decades and his art has been exhibited and collected by numerous museums in the U.S and South America. Bert taught mixed media art at Art Center School of Design in Pasadena, California (2000-2005) and was a recent Honorable Award winner of MOLAA’s annual juried art competition, MOLAA Awards 07.
The artist will be in attendance at the MOLAA Member’s Reception, Saturday, May 16,
6:00 – 8:00 pm and on Sunday, May 17 from 2:00 – 3:30pm the public is invited to A Conversation with the Artist in the Main Gallery. The exhibition is accompanied by an illustrated catalog.
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