Robert Gabris
Insectology in My Body (2020)
Photo: Ela Bialkowska / Okno Studio, Florence 2020
Robert Gabris’s “insectologies,” as he calls them, address the troubling legacy of European ethnography, which for a long time had a dehumanizing view of non-European communities and people. Their bodies were treated as scientific material to be analyzed and dissected if necessary. Working in drawings and performances, Gabris imagines his own metamorphosis into a wondrous bug, a little like Franz Kafka’s hero Gregor Samsa.
The artist sees his body as constantly on the verge of being rejected or displayed as an oddity for being queer and of Romani origin. Using ink, string, and other improvised materials, he transforms himself, tapping into a tradition dating to Viennese Actionism. Gabris thus distances himself from ethnological attributes and previous anthropological research. Instead, he reflects the very mechanism of displaying human beings as examples—be it as racialized stereotypes or as living experiments.
Robert Gabris (1986, Hnúšťa, Slovakia) is an artist who uses conceptual drawing and its experimental implementation to critically confront questions of identity, especially related to groups excluded from society. Recent solo exhibitions include Belvedere 21, Vienna (2023); Museum of Romani Culture, Brno (2022); Strabag Kunstforum, Vienna, (2021); and Villa Romana, Florence (2021). Gabris has participated in Documenta 15, Kassel (2024, as part of the Off Biennale Budapest), the Biennale of Sydney (2024), and the Lyon Biennale (2024), among others. He lives in Vienna.
HD video, stereo sound, 5:35 min.
Camera: Christiane Peschek
Postproduction: David Pujdas Bosch
Courtesy of the artist