Joe Gibbons has been working fearlessly in various art media for over 50 years, all under the umbrella of a mode he calls “Research”. From his early explorations of voyeurism (Spying, 1978) and drug-addicted youths (Going to the Dogs, 1980) in the 1970s to his auto-documentaries of the 1980s (“Living in the World”, 1986); on to his PixelVision videos (Barbie’s Audition, 1990) and experimental sit-coms (“OnOurOwn”, 1992) of the 1990s; then to his  auto-fictional “Doppelgänger” of the 2000s and finally to his extra-legal adventures of the last decade (The New Years Eve Bank Robbery).

His “research” takes shape as film, video, performance and drawing. He situates his work (when required) under the rubrics of “Speculative Documentary”(Confessions of a Sociopath), “Auto-Fiction”(Toxic Detox, 1992 with Tony Oursler) and even “Institutional Critique” (Art Liberation Front, 1977 — well before it was labeled as such). 

His work has been exhibited at numerous institutions including the Museum of  Modern Art in NY, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Centre Pompidou,  and the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia in Madrid, Spain. His work  has been included four times in the Whitney Museum Biennial (1993, 2000, 2002, 2006), and in 2001 he was awarded a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship.