Ron Geibert: Four [FotoFocus Biennial]

“Ron Geibert photographs with the sensibility of a jazz musician.  He delights in taking chances, in exploring the edge where identifiable form shades into apparent randomness, and in discovering beauty and pleasure in the unexpected. His pictures have about them an air of improvisation, a freedom from deliberation and predictability; his photographic “touch” is attuned to subtle nuances more than to conspicuous gestures.  Geibert’s photographs reflect qualities of discernment and sophistication, a sense of timing and apparent ease that put one in mind of a performer who plays in the vicinity of the note and next to the beat, but who is never so common and obvious as to play right on them.” —Sean Wilkinson

Four Decades celebrates the work of Professor Emeritus Ron Geibert and his 27-year career at Wright State University. Commonly artists work with a particular theme, problem, or issue for long periods, which is the case for artist Ron Geibert. For 20 years he was a color documentarian, followed by 20 years as an experimental installation and multi-media artist focused on Orwellian issues of deception and the oversaturation of stimuli. Recently, Geibert returned to the camera, then an iPhone, and then onto obsolete software to modify previously made works. Geibert simultaneously explored revised ideas, new ideas, and old ideas throughout his career.

This survey show includes many photographic works and publications generated over four decades of Geibert’s career. Acknowledging that the printed book is perhaps an instrument destined for obsolescence, Geibert’s plates are a visual tour of the beauty and beguiling power of images and text found within the pages. His panoramic “sliver” prints are a return to early ideas, though now illustrating information conveyed more by bits and pieces in the digital age. Traditional silver prints provide insight into his undergraduate days, while the panoramic inkjet prints using an iPhone are new ideas he discovered through the “sliver” exploration.