7000-Day Candle (red/love), 2014.
Composite digital screenshot from HD Video. 08:08 minutes.

7000-Day Candles, Dave Greber’s third exhibition with the gallery, explores the notions of spirituality, technology and transhumanism, and touches on spiritual folkways celebrated in New Orleans’ history. The installation, vibrant and revelatory, consists of four video monitor-based objects and a Stasseo (stained-glass-video) – a technique the artist developed utilizing multiple projections, painting and 3D elements to realize large, installed-video compositions.

The four ‘objects’ are video interpretations of the popular 7 Day Candles, often used as tools for prayer, devotion, ritual, meditation, protection and healing. Similar to the tangible candles, each is designated with a color and dedicated to a unique focus – Red/Love, Green/Luck, etc. The video manifestations closely mirror the physical in instruction, intent and credence. The 7000-day candles each feature their ingredients so as to describe the specific essence, and come with a piece of parchment paper for the viewer to document his/her intentions and place behind the monitor while ‘burning.’ Also like their tangible counterparts, the candles claim “achievement like no other!” and “handcrafted with over 14 ingredients!” and each comes with a lucky number. The intent is that the viewer runs the video until the monitor finishes its burn – roughly 7,000 days – thus reaching the full potential of its intervention.

The Stasseo mural depicts the view of an empty street from inside a French Quarter-inspired shop window  – a solitary experience demanding the examination of contemporary relationships in a technisized society.

Dave Greber was born in Philadelphia in 1982. He studied at the Middle Bucks Institute for Technology, Temple University, Universiteit van Amsterdam, and Tulane University. His installations have been featured in galleries and museums including the Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans, LA and The Ogden Museum of Southern Art, New Orleans, LA. He was recently selected for inclusion in the Crystal Bridges Museum exhibition, “State of the Art: Discovering American Art Now.” His work has been covered by Art in America, Rhizome, Artforum, Artvoices, Hyperallergic, DailyServing, Pelican Bomb, Oxford American, and others. He is a member of the artist-run New Orleans collective, The Front, where he is both a curator and exhibitor.