CESAR GABLER: A CROSSING THROUGH DRAWING LONDON: 10 JANUARY–3 FEBRUARY 2017 SANTIAGO: 10 JANUARY–10 MARCH 2017

“I try to experience the same distance, strangeness and fascination that came to me as a child from the stamp of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis or the humour and songs of Bob Hope and Bing Crosby. It's strange, it was the '70s, but we lived bombed by a remote time. Maybe it was a strategy of the dictatorship’s regime to combat the present and the immediate past.” César Gabler

For over more than a decade, César Gabler has developed a distinctive style, with drawing and illustration at the crux of his practice. No pens or ‘Sharpie’s’ mark the line but instead tools such as brushes and India Ink, tying him back to the origins of illustration. These drawings themselves are the result of pressures, inclinations and movements of the ink on paper. They allow him to create a deeply personal world César Gabler was born in 1970 under a based on loss and displacement. Socialist government that three years later was toppled by a Dictatorship that Underscoring César Gabler’s drawings is an exposure of a dire aspect of our political lasted seventeen years. He earned his BFA and MA from the Universidad Católica culture. He highlights how countries in Latin America still suffer from a neo-colonial de Chile. At the time, this university relationship with Europe and North America. The works in the London exhibition created one of the most interesting draw on iconographical inspirations from Chile’s past – such as when in 1866 McNeill programmes - without purposefully Whistler travelled to the port of Valparaiso in Chile, a journey that has puzzled making a claim to teach artists how to be scholars. There are still questions as to whether Whistler was clandestinely carrying artists, they were able to express themselves at the height of a repressive arms or just wanting to depict a small country like Chile at war with Spain. No regime. His most recent exhibitions evidence supports either theory. The second inspiration uncovers the theories include Mutant History at Museum of behind Walt Disney’s travel to Latin America and particularly Chile in the 1940s. Contemporary Art, Quintanormal, Spearheaded by President Franklin Roosevelt, the mission of his trip was to curb the Santiago, 2016. Black Bilis at Centro interest of Nazism and fascism in Brazil, Argentina and Chile. Disney was to create Extensión U.C, Santiago, 2016; The Last new cartoons inspired by the region with the intention of bolstering good will. The Opera Rock at Sala Gasco Arte Contemporáneo, Santiago, 2015; Vultures legendary animator thought Chile did not have much to offer except the Condor of Memory at Museum of Contemporary eagle, the Andes Mountains and a figure called ‘Pedrito.’ Within the drawings, Art, Valdivia, Chile 2014; The Cathedral colonial figures are interwoven with Hollywood images and military figures. Many of of Tomorrow, at Espacio H, 2013. He has the faces are erased. The iconography highlights a troubled past. For the works on recently published an artist book show at the Santiago gallery, the iconography is more personal. Self-portaits of the titled The Cathedral of Tomorrow and is artists are interwoven into the images. This political work is deeply personal. currently researching the history of drawing in Chile for a publication with the Finis Terrae University upcoming. César The works in both exhibitions appear like memories of actors that have been blurred Gabler teaches art at both university level in the history of Hollywood films and political Imperialism. They equally reflect a and in children’s schools, as well as kind of silence and, by using drawing as the medium, appear anachronistic. It is as if actively publishing on art. Throughout his the artist is living in the margins of global visibility. Thus, Gabler infuses his work career, drawing and illustration have been his medium. Working in black and with the imagery and energy of this strange Chilean heritage and niche culture. white for more than a decade, in 2016 he introduced colour in his work for the first time.

This is César Gabler’s first exhibition outside of Chile.

Cecilia Brunson Projects • www.ceciliabrunsonprojects.com

LONDON: SANTIAGO: Royal Oak Yard Av. Pocuro, 3056 depto 3 London SE1 3GD Providencia United Kingdom Santiago, Chile +44 (0)20 7407 4971 +56 9 9368 0382