Renee Gertler: Flood

Curator. San Francisco Arts Commission Galleries: Grove St. Window Installation Site. May - June 2007

For the past two years Gertler has been using model-making materials and techniques to create fantastical versions of natural phenomena such as waterfalls, tornadoes and meteors. For her installation at the SFAC Gallery Window Installation Site she is creating a simulacrum of a leak that will over time result in a flood. Model making, as a practice tends to be extremely precise and contained. Conversely – and quite obviously- floods tend to ignore boundaries. It is this juxtaposition that inspires her work.

Throughout the five-week period of Gertler’s installation in the SFAC Gallery Window Installation Site the leak will continue to flow down from an imagined hole in the ceiling. As a result, the flood on the gallery floor will increase in volume and eventually overtake the space. This seemingly endless flow of water will be constructed and regularly added to using small gauge basswood sticks and hot glue.