Robert Ginder (Past Project)

House, 2012
1162 Prospect Street
15' 6" x 20' 6"

The piece HOUSE by Robert Ginder shows an iconic image of a Mediterranean/Spanish-style house while also playing with the idea of the house as an icon. The inscription HOUSE, beneath the image, pronounces the obvious but also represents the universal, abstract idea of a house. The house is specific in its style while the inscription expresses the broader idea of a house – its fulfillment of human needs and dreams. The inscription, like the image in this mural, can stand alone as a work of art and is considered one in an ongoing group of one-word poems the artist is collecting.The image in the artwork HOUSE borrows from the painting titled 4540, 38 In Back painted in oil and 22 karat gold on wood in 2001.

Robert Ginder is a multi-faceted visual artist known for his painting, sculpture, assemblage, and photography that focus on elevating the everyday. Ginder was born in 1948 in Alamosa, Colorado. He has spent the majority of his life in both Southern California and New York living and creating work. He uses elements of time and history to create a venerable artifact to elicit a new regard for subjects that might be seen as otherwise mundane. In this new context, the ordinary can be re-examined in a new and often more spiritual light. Often using gold leaf and gilding, he engages classical techniques of the old masters juxtaposed with contemporary subject matter referencing the environment and architecture of Southern California. Among his honors,

Ginder has been the recipient of the Artist Magazine “Dream Studio” First Prize in 1991 and the New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in 1992. His work has been featured in many notable institutions including the USC Fisher Museum of Art, Los Angeles; the Brooklyn Museum, New York; Boca Raton Museum of Art, Boca Raton; the Timken Museum of Art, San Diego; and the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego. Ginder lives and works in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Photos by Philipp Scholz Rittermann