Steve Gerberich

Biography

Steve Gerberich grew up on a farm in Iowa and studied photography at the University of Northern Iowa. He came to New York in 1985 meaning to stay a year, and began with photographic installations. A storefront window he made in SoHo turned out to be his best advertising, and to make those windows more arresting he taught himself how to make things move.

For more than three decades since, he has built mechanical sculptures from collected cast-offs: springs, gears, pulleys, kitchen tools and toy parts. Many are interactive, set in motion when a visitor presses a button or turns a crank, and several are wired to darkroom timers that run the action. Writers have compared the machines to farm equipment and to Rube Goldberg's cartoon contraptions. He has described the reuse at the heart of the work simply: most of these things were thrown away, and the sculpture gives them a new life.

His Brooklyn studio, packed with found objects, was featured in Make: magazine in 2015. He has shown repeatedly at the Stamford Museum and Nature Center, with a touring exhibition that went on to the Brattleboro Museum and Art Center, and has led build-your-own-contraption workshops at venues including the Norman Rockwell Museum. In Newburgh he took part in Holland Tunnel's 2018 grand opening and Reclamation (2025), and has shown kinetic work and led workshops at ADS Warehouse.

Practice. Interactive kinetic assemblage made from salvaged and found objects, driven by cranks, buttons, motors and timers; humorous machines in the tradition of Rube Goldberg, often shown with hands-on workshops.