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FEATURE “It
ROBERT never
GOBER
Widely recognised as one of Americastarts ’s great living artists, Robert Gober has created
some of the most influential yet enigmatic artworks of the past three decades. As his fr
biggest rometrospective to date opens in Basel, he continues to avoid questions as to
what, precisely, they are all about
words MARTIN HERBERTmeaning”
THREE DECADES OF ROBERT GOBER. How to compute the exponential instance, contextual elements such as fabricated stacks of newspapers,
formal expansion, measure the swelling storehouse of metaphor? imprinted with bleak extracts from recent history, make clear that
As has been widely noted, Gober’s art is rooted in troubled his evocation of a home-gone-wrong now extends to his native
domesticity, and has bodied forth pervasive, dreamlike ambiences United States. Even so, Gober’s art transcends personal and cultural
through perversely tweaked mimicries of household familiarities lamentation. His sculptural repertory of doorways, sluicing water and
(bathroom sinks flattened or doubled and stripped of faucets and truncated or stigmatised figures has come to suggest a far-reaching
plugholes; drainage ducts; wallpaper patterned with genitalia). Heavy poetry of passage; and in some sense, the possibility of redemption.
forces hiding in the everyday are further implied by his meticulous use How to consider these developments in toto has always been
of trompe l’oeil. Wood counterfeited in bronze or plaster, flesh in hair- the question, though, because Gober’s feats don’t lend themselves to
speckled wax: always more than meets the eye, no matter how much transportation or to easy packaging into retrospectives. As a survey
we’re invited to wish it otherwise. But over the years, as Gober’s practice unprecedented in its ambition, Robert Gober: Work 1976–2007 – which
has evolved from standalone sculptures to installations whose spare features remakes of five major installations alongside numerous
elements combine to create dense matrices of allusion – and as his sculptures and drawings – opens at the Schaulager, Basel, Gober
reputation as one of America’s pre-eminent artists has solidified – he speaks about the sources of his ideas, the unique logistics that attend
has also enlarged his symbolic language. In latter-day exhibitions, for his art and why we may not be hearing from him again until 2012.
ARTREVIEW five.linsix.lin
p056-063 Robert Gober AR Jun07.i56 56 9/5/07 01:28:58
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