BERT GILBERT
An interdisciplinary practice of transforming the wound.
SHOWN
Somerset House · Mimmo Scognamiglio · The Center Cannot Hold, Istanbul · Darkness Visible, Athens · Trinity Buoy Wharf · Tate Publishing
PRESS
Dazed · Vice · Evening Standard · The Telegraph · Sunday Times Style · Clash · Ambit · Unpolished
COLLABORATIONS
Pet Shop Boys · Róisín Murphy · The Cure · Hendrick’s
TRUMPETS WORN BY
Joe Lycett · Marisa Tomei · Esme Bianco · William Orbit · Martin Gore
Bert Gilbert MRSS, Member of the Royal Society of Sculptors.
SIX ROOMS · ONE WORLD
THE ARCHIVE
More than twenty-five years of objects, rituals and environments by Bert Gilbert. The works are not separate projects but chambers of one world: motifs return, materials are inherited and reworked, and each piece opens a door to the next. Some works appear in more than one room. That is the point.
ROOM I
THE BODY AND THE WOUND
The body as reliquary, costume and battleground: wounds honoured rather than hidden.
WOUND TEMPLES
Ongoing.
THE PENETRABLE MAN
Soft sculpture.
THE FOUR SKINS OF THE APOCALYPSE
2016. Third eye suit, Ziggurhat and Pineal wand. Silk, wood, fibreglass, digitally printed lycra, gold leaf, foam and crystal.
THE MAIDEN
2023. A manifesto from the Wounded Divine, devised during Ron Athey’s Darkness Visible residency.
THE BOTTOM BLUSHERS
Surreal hands. Originals.
ROOM II
PORTALS
Thresholds to step through: paper, sky, mirror and light.
PAPER PORTALS
2020–2023. Drawings and soundscape.
SKY PORTALS
Sensoring. Prints and editions.
PORTABLE PORTALS
Entry poles to the third space.
MIRROR MIRROR
THE VESICA
2022. Mixed media, soundscape with light and embedded wearables. Somerset House.
ROOM III
SHADOW AND RITUAL
Fire, fur and gold: figures that carry what we cannot.
THE TWINS
2020–24. Gold lametta, inherited black fur off-cuts, oil paint, canvas and wood.
THE RECORD KEEPERS
2016–2021. Inherited hand-dyed mink off-cuts, acrylic, pigment, ink and gold. Mimmo Scognamiglio, 2021.
THE SCAPEGOAT
2013–14. A ceremonial fire shaman. Fire ritual and performance, Paris.
THE SHADOW
Performance.
SHADOWS OF MY FORMER SELF
Wrestling with my inner demons.
BAPTISM BY FIRE
XANAS
SORCERESS
THE GARDENERS
ROOM IV
SENSORING THE CENSOR
A practice of art, sound, ritual and sensory incubation. The sound works are artworks in their own right.
SENSORING SOUND: MAPPING THE INVISIBLE
Sound works.
SKY PORTALS
Also in Room II.
THE VESICA
Also in Room II.
ROOM V
THE SINISTRY
The visionary partnership between Bert Gilbert and fashion designer Izzet Ers.
THE SINISTRY
Manifesto and works.
THE LIBERATION SUITS
The Sinistry of Art.
THE SINISTRY OF FASHION
THE GAME OF LIFE
Curated by James Putman.
ROOM VI
BOOKS, OBJECTS AND EDITIONS
Talismans to take home.
THE BOOK OF BLACK
BOOK OF SKULLS
BERT INDUSTRIES
Art objects, editions and wearables.
COLLECT
Editions and objects to buy now.
COLLECT
The Record Keepers also reference the Descent of Inanna and the myth of the Golden Fleece. Energetic, sensory doorways to the metaphysical background of the world, the invisible, the unsaid, the felt, they open onto a world of magic and mayhem, a portal to perception. Each skin is activated by the element of air.
Materials
Inherited hand‑dyed mink skins (salvaged off‑cuts from the fashion industry), acrylic, pigment powder, ink, gold, silver or copper leaf, branches, gold nails, activated by the element of air.
“Some artists have a curiosity to explore aspects of the occult with the idea that objects themselves have an inherent magical, talismanic power. Bert Gilbert, who has a ritualistic and metaphysical approach to materials, has created a series of sculptures using formerly discarded animal pelts that she has painted with intricate symbolic designs hung on tree branches.” — Shamanism (2021), curated by James Putnam, Mimmo Scognamiglio Arte Contemporanea
Signed and numbered limited edition of 200 bone china art plates.
A 6.5 inch bone china plate printed with a repeating Flower of Life sacred geometry. The plate is intended as a contemporary protective object for the home – a protective evil eye and small portal of mundane magic into a wider cosmology of plants, perception and altered seeing. Designed to sit on a wall, altar or table.
Freshly minted new art necklace “The Clit Coin”, a snake’s eye, a vagina , a portal and new crypotcurrency/ clitocurrency.
Forget the bitcoin and invest in clitcoin.. that’s if you can find it :)
18k gold plated sterling silver with long 25 inch chain
Sterling silver with long 25 inch chain