Robert Gober: Objects, Absence, and Unease

Robert Gober

b. 1954 | American | Sculpture; Installations; Oils; Mixed Media

A maker of objects and installations, Gober is well regarded and much exhibited on the international circuit. He explores various fashionable ideas, such as subversion of conventions and social norms (the happy family as oppressive rather than beneficial), gay politics, and green and conservation issues. Some of his objects look like found objects but are in fact made by Gober; others are everyday objects that overtly don’t work (like an unconnected sink).

Does the work at times risk becoming too humorless, oblique, obscure, and overly didactic? Does he sometimes seem to say: “Today, students of mine, we are going to consider issues of normality and abnormality in contemporary society and strategies of how we might debate those issues by creating objects that will subvert our normal expectations?” Which interests him more: his strategies or the human issues? Aren’t some of his chosen social issues very parochial?

Short Haired Cheese 1992–1993

Two Partially Buried Sinks 1986–1987

Key Works:The Subconscious Sink, 1985 (Minneapolis: Walker Art Center);Prison Window, 1992 (San Francisco: Museum of Modern Art)