Theo Gerber – Science Fiction
Theo Gerber – Science Fiction / ISBN 9783039421268 / A 128-page paperback with flaps, 8.75 x 12.25 inches, published in 2023 by Scheidegger & Spiess (Switzerland) / text is bi-lingual French/German, but there are 69 color and 58 b/w illustrations
Perhaps because of the English title, this book was miscategorized in a bunch of book databases as having English-language text, which it does not have! I decided not to return it to the distributor because the art is pretty incredible.
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“We immerse ourselves in Gerber’s worlds in order to lose ourselves and find ourselves in amazing places.” This is how the great Swiss writer Paul Nizon characterizes the work of the Thun painter Theo Gerber (1928–1997) – a free spirit who is still unknown in this country. This was particularly due to the artist himself, who rejected the efforts of gallery owners to make his paintings known to the general public. For Gerber, success did not mean fame and honor, but rather that “his art shows a different possibility than that of his contemporaries”. This upholding of artistic freedom makes it impossible to assign a specific direction to the style and globetrotter, who joined the West African Dogon tribe for two years during a creative crisis.
This book, which is published on the occasion of a comprehensive Theo Gerber retrospective at the Kunstmuseum Thun, finally gives this, in the best sense of the word, incomprehensible artist the attention he deserves.
