Robert Gaylor: The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come 2012-2014, mixed media

Axle Contemporary, 505-670-5854 or 505-670-7612 In his multimedia installation The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, artist Robert Gaylor turns a critical eye toward the annual holiday and its focus on the gross consumerism and excesses that have replaced its spiritual and religious commemorations. Gaylor’s ephemeral sculpture depicts a homeless man pushing a shopping cart that contains his few belongings. The man’s face is molded from a life mask of Abraham Lincoln, who argued for the equality of all men in speeches such as his historic Gettysburg Address. “His man is real and not ...,” writes photo historian Eugenia Parry of Gaylor’s work in her essay “Taken In.” “He becomes a transcendent, heavenly body, a kind of constellation, like Orion, The Hunter, or Cassiopeia, The Lady of the Chair, brought down to earth.” Axle hosts a reception in its mobile gallery next to the water tower at Railyard Plaza (1607 Alcadesa St.) at 5 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 23. Check axleart.com for location updates.