Coat Rack, wood hanger, Lilli Ann Coat, mink fur, political buttons. Dimensions variable.
Geyer’s Ghost is a sculpture, constructed of various manipulated vintage materials, that speaks to invisible but present bodies. Viewers might, for example, imagine the sculpture’s white coat—which features the label of Lilli Ann, a San Francisco–based company known for its elegant suits and coats—being worn by such a figure as Grace McCann Morley, founding director of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and subject of Geyer’s in-depth research into the role of women in establishing American modernism. An eight-foot-long braid of mink stoles, the head of one animal clamped to the tail of another, adorns the coat and cascades onto the floor, where legs and paws sprawl outward like tree roots. The numerous political buttons that embellish the coat’s left lapel convey such slogans as: “ERA YES” and “There is a U in United Nations.” On one button, the words “Failure Is Impossible” emblazon the profile of women’s rights activist Susan B. Anthony. Another refers to Ireland’s 2018 abortion-rights referendum. The coatrack, which gets anchored in a gallery wall, also holds an umbrella and a hat and features a round mirror hung exactly at the average height of a viewer’s head.