Take a setting, perform an action, and create a problem.

For Gerry Bibby, this simple structure establishes the potential for protest, power, and poetry. Building on the tradition of the collage, where existing materials are mixed and merged, Bibby likes to occupy and colonize an object, an image, or a place: he finds what it already contains, uses it for what it’s worth, cuts up and diverts some of its key components, and extracts a new condition.

Of special interest to Bibby are words and furniture, which he liberates by asking them to perform tasks they are unfit to do. Over and over again, he loads up familiar objects with their psychological ramifications, injecting them with new conditions of use. For example, a table can announce a place of administration, but also one of politics, aesthetics, community, display, ritual, or even religion. Playing off Tristana, a 1970 film by Luis Buñuel, Bibby saws a leg off our table. (text excerpt by Anthony Huberman. The Artist’s Institute, New York.)