FEATURE ROBERT GOBER
In light of those difficulties, does the idea of permanent installation
appeal to you? Or is it inimical to a working practice which seems
characterised by forward motion?
That’s a good question. No it’s not inimical, but it’s also not required,
except in a few rare exceptions. The Emanuel Hoffmann Foundation
purchased the installation that was created initially for MOCA in
Los Angeles about ten years ago. [The untitled multipart work, in an
arrangement mimicking the regions of a cathedral, features a sculptural
Madonna pierced through the womb by a culvert pipe; oversize
suitcases; and gallons of water cascading down cedar steps.] That work
had many built-in conservation unknowns, due mostly to the use of
water and newly invented materials. There is a very limited amount of
knowledge about how these new, ever-evolving materials, plastics, etc.,
will behave over time. The installation was created to exist for the usual
three-month period and is now installed for perpetuity – whatever that
is. So those technical or material decisions that I made at the time have
to be readdressed, re-fabricated and sometimes reinvented for this
new longevity, which requires an unusual dedication on both the part
of the institution and myself.
C ould you say something about what you want the Schaulager show
to convey, and your thoughts and feelings upon reaching this point?
No, not really.
One hallmark of your art is its meticulous handmade quality. How
important is it for you yourself to be physically involved in the making?
I t’s been almost 20 years since I made everything myself, which was a
motivation brought on by economics as much as personal unconscious
need. Mostly I work with my assistants, who all have different skills,
and we all work with craftsmen that range from glass-blowers to
Martin Herbert: blacksmiths to a woman who gathers willow branches in upstate New
You appear to have resisted retrospectives. York. Some works – most works, probably – my hand never touches,
Why have one now? although I constantly make changes and reverse direction. I think that
other people might be much more interested or invested in what this
Robert Gober: issue might mean than I am.
Lik e most things in life, that’s both true and not true. There have been
pretty long periods when I’ve just wanted to let myself wander into new Some commentators hav e treated your works as harbouring fixed
work – didn’t want to look back and, maybe more importantly, didn’t meanings that must be deciphered or disinterred. Others, such as Hal
want to spend the organisational time it takes to do those survey-type Foster – who described as a ‘broken allegory’ your Matthew Marks
shows. I have had a few of them over the years, but there are some things Gallery show of 2005, with its decapitated Christ figure, American
I’ve never been able to bring back to life, mostly for logistical reasons, bird, recumbent figures in baths and drawings of embracing couples
which I was able to consider doing at the Schaulager. The installation on newspapers from the day after 9/11 – suggest that meaning-making
that I created in 1992 at Dia in New York, for instance, contains a hand- is more problematic and open in your art. To what extent do you
painted mural of a forest which takes a crew of six to eight scenic endeavour to codify meaning?
painters two months to paint. Very few institutions in the world can It never starts from meaning. The initial impulse might be a colour
take that amount of time with installation. The Schaulager mounts one or an image or an anger or an overheard phrase. Going back to the
exhibition a year and is closed to the public for the remainder, so we installation for MOCA, it could have started – I can’t exactly remember
could consider recreating technically difficult works. – with the image of a city street drain. I have absentmindedly stared
at and into these drains every day for more than 30 years as I wait
for the traffic lights to change so that I can cross the street. But what
would that image by itself made into a sculpture ‘mean’? It only gained “I’m working best when
metaphorical force as I placed it into the context of other images. But
what that context and those other images were, I did not know for quite
a while. >I’m working blind”
ARTREVIEW five.linfour.linfive.lineight.lin
p056-063 Robert Gober AR Jun07.i58 58 9/5/07 01:45:01
Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11 Page 12 Page 13 Page 14 Page 15 Page 16 Page 17 Page 18 Page 19 Page 20 Page 21 Page 22 Page 23 Page 24 Page 25 Page 26 Page 27 Page 28 Page 29 Page 30 Page 31 Page 32 Page 33 Page 34 Page 35 Page 36 Page 37 Page 38 Page 39 Page 40 Page 41 Page 42 Page 43 Page 44 Page 45 Page 46 Page 47 Page 48 Page 49 Page 50 Page 51 Page 52 Page 53 Page 54 Page 55 Page 56 Page 57 Page 58 Page 59 Page 60 Page 61 Page 62 Page 63 Page 64 Page 65 Page 66 Page 67 Page 68 Page 69 Page 70 Page 71 Page 72 Page 73 Page 74 Page 75 Page 76 Page 77 Page 78 Page 79 Page 80 Page 81 Page 82 Page 83 Page 84 Page 85 Page 86 Page 87 Page 88 Page 89 Page 90 Page 91 Page 92 Page 93 Page 94 Page 95 Page 96 Page 97 Page 98 Page 99 Page 100 Page 101 Page 102 Page 103 Page 104 Page 105 Page 106 Page 107 Page 108 Page 109 Page 110 Page 111 Page 112 Page 113 Page 114 Page 115 Page 116 Page 117 Page 118 Page 119 Page 120 Page 121 Page 122 Page 123 Page 124 Page 125 Page 126 Page 127 Page 128 Page 129 Page 130 Page 131 Page 132 Page 133 Page 134 Page 135 Page 136 Page 137 Page 138 Page 139 Page 140 Page 141 Page 142 Page 143 Page 144 Page 145 Page 146 Page 147 Page 148 Page 149 Page 150 Page 151 Page 152 Page 153 Page 154 Page 155 Page 156 Page 157 Page 158 Page 159 Page 160 Page 161 Page 162 Page 163 Page 164 Page 165 Page 166 Page 167 Page 168 Page 169 Page 170