Jochen Gerz gives The Gift to SFMOMA

The Gift by Jochen Gerz.

Artist Jochen Gerz has the look of someone who is comfortable wherever he goes.  Perhaps that is because over a career that spans forty years, he has survived a World War, joined the May 1968 uprising in Paris, taught, traveled, and propelled dialogue on topics such as homelessness, fascism, and racism while making art that has forced critics, public figures, and ordinary citizens to sit up and take notice. 

Gerz, an important artist in the Participation-Based Art movement, was in San Francisco recently to oversee the installation of his piece, The Gift, which makes its North American debut in SFMOMA’s exhibition The Art of Participation: 1950 to Now (November 8 – February 8).  

A spry German in his late sixties with a gentle presence and deliberate thoughtfulness, Gerz has devoted his art—mostly large scale public installations—to confronting people with social issues, then allowing their reactions to unearth new dimensions in the piece.  

Gerz’s years of exhibiting public art taught him to silence his ego and open himself to expansion.  “Reality is a great teacher,” said Gerz in an interview.  “Art should distribute itself…the artist should disappear.”  

In 1968, he famously stuck a sign at the feet of Michelangelo’s David which read “Caution Art Corrupts,” reminding people to consider the real art before them rather than the legacy created around the piece by academicians.  More recent works such as Monument Against Racism (1993) and Les Mots de Paris (2000) are similarly stark with moral imperatives. 

The Gift, a photography experience that depends on public interaction, was first unveiled in France and Germany in 2000. Viewers are invited to have their portrait taken inside a photo lab.  The images are then displayed as part of the exhibit and also catalogued to a website. 

The decision to participate or not shapes the work with an addition or an absence. On February 8, the final day of the exhibit, viewers come back to the museum to retrieve their portrait—a surprise twist that day will make participants truly understand the thought behind the title The Gift. 

SFMOMA’s Curator of Media Arts Rudolf Frieling chose Gerz’s piece for The Art of Participation alongside works by other major artists from the movement such as John Cage, Lygia Clark, Dan Graham and many others.  The exhibit opens November 8.