Join us on Friday, November 20, from 5–7 p.m. for the closing reception of “Gasoline Epochs,” a culminating solo exhibition by one of our most recent residents, Robert Bailey.
During the reception, we’ll talk with the artist about the exhibition and their residency at Chicago Avenue Fire Arts Center. ASL interpreters will be provided.
“Gasoline Epochs” treats gasoline canisters and oil quart containers as vessels of memory, desire, and greed. Cast in bronze and aluminum, these familiar objects are given weight and personhood, becoming witnesses to the modern condition.
Across three installations depicting scenes of birth, marriage, and death, the canisters and containers speak in quiet, restless voices about dependence, aspiration, and the inescapable gravity of finance. The metal’s cold, fossilized sheen contrasts with the warmth of human longing.
This body of work asks: What remains when the fuel that powers our lives becomes the measure of our means?
This Cultural Districts Art Fund program activity is funded, in part, by the Arts & Cultural Affairs Department in the City of Minneapolis