Sculptor and installation artist Robert Gober is a master of making the familiar seem strange. His works have psychological weight and are rife with possible meanings and references, exploring themes of family, religion, sexuality, alienation, and memory. Since the 1980s, Gober has been meticulously handcrafting common household items, human body parts, and objects of devotion. Among the objects he makes are beds, sinks, bags of cat litter, torsos and legs, candles, crucifixes, and church pews. Through selective exaggerations (such as intensifying the color on a bag of cat litter), meaningful alterations (like leaving out the faucets on a sink), and narrative juxtapositions (like lining the inside of a girl’s shoe with a sparse layer of hair), Gober mixes the real with the surreal in ways that fascinate, disturb, and disorient the viewer.
Sculptor and installation artist Robert Gober is a master of making the familiar seem strange. His works have psychological weight and are rife with possible meanings and references, exploring themes of family, religion, sexuality, alienation, and memory. Since the 1980s, Gober has been meticulously handcrafting common household items, human body parts, and objects of devotion. Among the objects he makes are beds, sinks, bags of cat litter, torsos and legs, candles, crucifixes, and church pews. Through selective exaggerations (such as intensifying the color on a bag of cat litter), meaningful alterations (like leaving out the faucets on a sink), and narrative juxtapositions (like lining the inside of a girl’s shoe with a sparse layer of hair), Gober mixes the real with the surreal in ways that fascinate, disturb, and disorient the viewer.
