Guy Gerber’s Separate Ways Takes Shape in Los Angeles
BY: jesse zapatero
As Los Angeles surged into motion for Frieze Los Angeles Week—amid the swirl of blue-chip presentations and late-night industry gatherings—Guy Gerber opted for something more inward-facing. His solo exhibition Separate Ways opened with a private reception in Hollywood, welcoming a carefully assembled mix of press, collectors, cultural figures, and longtime collaborators into a space designed not as spectacle, but as atmosphere. On view from February 26 through March 4, the 21-work presentation marked the Los Angeles chapter of a project that first debuted in New York. If that earlier unveiling introduced Gerber into the American art dialogue, the Hollywood iteration affirmed his place within it. The opening night crowd—spanning prominent writers, executives, tastemakers, and devoted followers of his music—reflected a palpable curiosity about the evolution of an artist whose legacy has long been rooted in the dance floor, now expanding with intention onto gallery walls.
Gerber’s practice, however, has never existed in a single dimension. Known internationally for marathon DJ sets and for founding the nomadic event series RUMORS, he has spent decades shaping immersive musical environments from Ibiza to Tulum, New York to Tel Aviv. His reputation includes a 12-hour performance ranked among Resident Advisor’s Top 10 Live Acts three consecutive years—a testament to his stamina and instinct for emotional pacing. Yet visual art has quietly paralleled that career, surfacing in earlier projects such as “Wisdom of the Glove” during his Pacha Ibiza residency in 2013, the “Mirror Games” installation in Ibiza in 2022, and his digital work “Invisible Trails,” presented during Art Basel Miami Beach week as part of Christie’s Next Wave exhibition at Faena Forum.
Separate Ways feels less like a pivot and more like a long-developing thesis finally given physical space.
Inside the gallery, mirrors anchor the exhibition both materially and conceptually. They appear as surfaces fractured, layered, obscured, or reframed—sometimes literal, sometimes implied through reflective textures and photographic interventions. Gerber works across photography, paint, collage, and handwritten text, building compositions that oscillate between vulnerability and confrontation. The pieces suggest a private dialogue made public: fragmented self-portraits, layered gestures of erasure and revelation, and words scrawled with the urgency of confession. The effect is immersive without being overwhelming; viewers are not dictated to but invited inward.
The timing of the exhibition during Frieze Week proved significant. Los Angeles, with its filmic sensibility and appetite for cross-disciplinary experimentation, seemed uniquely attuned to the project’s hybrid energy. Gerber himself described bringing the show to the city as deeply personal, suggesting that here, perhaps more than anywhere else, his parallel practices could meet honestly. The turnout reinforced that intuition. Attendance was strong, and conversations extended well past midnight—an indicator not merely of social success but of sustained engagement.
Beyond Los Angeles, Gerber’s 2026 calendar reflects an artist moving fluidly across geographies and forms. Earlier this month, he participated in Mexico Art Week, Back in LA during Frieze, he also performed for more than 3,000 attendees at a Framework event, underscoring his continued command of large-scale musical experiences even as he invests in more intimate visual explorations. This dual presence—club architect and gallery exhibitor—defines his current chapter.
Discover more about the exhibition and explore Guy Gerber’s visual practice at GUY GERBER ART.
