"the poetics of Rod Baer...oars seemingly buried
in the gallery floor, mysterious books, a precariously tilting 'house'...every
object is deftly made...Detail is intentionally attenuated and surfaces
look as if they've been rusted by weather and time...Partly because of
his materials, partly because of their humor and humanity, Baer's pieces
radiate whimsically mysterious story lines and invite us to fill in the
endings." - Marlene Donohue, Los Angeles Times
"this large circular structure expresses an entirely
different order and depth of sculptural presence. Like a Ferris wheel in
ruins, this oddly whimsical structure seems a poignantly lyrical monument
to our flights of ecstatic desire, which inevitably return earthward somewhat
damaged and frayed by time. Experienced on those terms, the work draws
its beholders into a mode of absorbed communion with their own natures
and does not exhaust its visual interest once its joke has been enjoyed.
The sense of site established by the work's compelling lyricism displaces
and overwhelms the sense of site as a comic stage, as a genial urban seat
of spectator curiosity and playfulness." - Robert Beyer, Artweek
"Baer's work revolves around the life struggle.
Choice, limitation, flaw, resistance, triumph, acceptance and finally existence
are touched upon through metaphor...refinement serves as a basis and a
contrast for visual and poetic images... - Elise Miller, Los Angeles Times
"Baer's sculpture convey mood by using space as
a great divide... He makes chairs which are obviously surrogates for him
and us...They appeal to some collective unconscious even as they resonate
with autobiographical meaning...Baer's success is a tribute to his insistence
on subordinating precedent to individual vision." - Robert Pincus,
San Diego Union
"Baer's installation looms with ominous dignity.
The concrete floor becomes an open sea over which various elements drift,
bob, traverse...Baer is an expert at organizing recognizable symbols into
an evocative format....haunting objects could have been content to speak
of complacent absolutes; instead their quietude is disruptive, transforming
matter to spirit. - Laurie Garris, Artweek
Pick of the Week: "Humorous, mysterious, nostalgic
and disarmingly banal by turns, Rod Baer's constructions each upend reality,
often literally. Together, however, they determine a curious Wonderlandish
logic..." - Peter Frank, LA Weekly
"Rod Baer's work is based on a complex interplay
between material and meaning. For him, the viewer is a collaborator, necessary
to complete a particular narrative. This narrative starts with the appropriation
of everyday objects, using them in situations that seem to approach their
normal use. Within this seemingly pragmatic context everything is knocked
out of whack... a reality which elegantly... renders his work absurd and
surrealistic, maintaining a balance between the playful and the melancholic....
dissolving the lines between reality (refusing) to relinquish claims regarding
the power and communicative status inherent in the art object." -
Kay Whitney, Visions
"(Rod Baer and - -) are two of the strongest sculptors
to emerge recently onto the LA scene. Baer's complex installation, Monsoon,
the seacoast of normality, is both a logistic and conceptual tour de force,
brilliantly blending elements of metaphor, surrealist irrationality and
physical presence. " - David DiMichelle, Artweek