Photo © Tate (Matt Greenwood)
9 rooms in Materials and Objects
What societal expectations are represented within the image of the home?
Robert Gober moved to New York in 1976, the day after graduating from Middlebury College in Vermont. He first had the idea to make doll’s houses before realising he was more interested in what home itself symbolised. Wanting to explore the idea of a domestic space, one of his first works as a professional artist was a small sculpture of a house in 1977.
Since then, houses and homes have been a recurring reference point – whether in the form of common objects found around the home or in patterned wallpaper. But on closer inspection, Gober’s objects are unusual since they are not the mass-produced objects they might at first appear to be.
Gober meticulously hand-makes his objects rather than purchasing them. Often, he and his team of studio assistants will use traditional art-making techniques or materials. The aim is not to imitate an object exactly, but to create a sensation of something recognisable yet strange.
Through a 45-year practice of subverting familiar objects and encouraging us to look again, Gober’s work draws attention to our differing moral attitudes towards sex, violence and religion. These debates are familiar in the media and politics of his home country, the United States, where these subjects continue to be intensely scrutinised.
Robert Gober, Bag of Donuts 1989
Each object in the installation that this work forms a part of is carefully made by hand. The sheets of wallpaper are individually screen-printed, the pewter drains were hand-moulded, and the paper bag with a logo is drawn in pencil by Gober. Though the doughnuts were deep fried by the artist, he worked with the sculpture conservator Christian Scheidemann to preserve them. They are injected with a synthetic resin to ensure their longevity. When it was first shown as one of two installations in a solo exhibition at Paula Cooper Gallery in New York in the autumn of 1989, critical reviews prompted a debate about nudity and public attitudes towards sex. Elizabeth Hess, the writer for the Village Voice, concluded ‘The work is graphic but not in the least bit pornographic.’
Gallery label, August 2024
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artworks in Robert Gober
Robert Gober, Untitled 1989–92
This is one of about ten leg sculptures Gober made in a two-year period. They were inspired by two formative experiences – a story his mother, who had been a nurse, told young Gober about being handed an amputated leg in the operating theatre. The second was as an adult, seeing a sliver of bare skin exposed by a fellow passenger crossing their legs on a flight. The artist said of his making process: ‘The hair on the leg is human and purchased from a wig supplier. The leg is a bleached beeswax cast of my lower leg. The hairs are implanted into the warmed-up beeswax, one by one, with a tool we crafted through trial and error in the studio.
Gallery label, August 2024
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artworks in Robert Gober
Robert Gober, Male and Female Genital Wallpaper 1989
Each object in the installation that this work forms a part of is carefully made by hand. The sheets of wallpaper are individually screen-printed, the pewter drains were hand-moulded, and the paper bag with a logo is drawn in pencil by Gober. Though the doughnuts were deep fried by the artist, he worked with the sculpture conservator Christian Scheidemann to preserve them. They are injected with a synthetic resin to ensure their longevity. When it was first shown as one of two installations in a solo exhibition at Paula Cooper Gallery in New York in the autumn of 1989, critical reviews prompted a debate about nudity and public attitudes towards sex. Elizabeth Hess, the writer for the Village Voice, concluded ‘The work is graphic but not in the least bit pornographic.’
Gallery label, August 2024
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artworks in Robert Gober
Robert Gober, Untitled 2000
These lithographs address claustrophobia and trauma, themes which Gober has associated with the experience of growing up gay in a rigidly Catholic suburban family. Gober's work has been described as involving the 'fabrication of shapes and images connected with daily life', which are subjected to 'incessant correction or distortion like a bad dream it is impossible to escape.'
Gallery label, August 2021
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artworks in Robert Gober
Robert Gober, Untitled 2000
The drain has been a recurring theme in Gober’s work. In a 1990 interview, he said: ‘I thought of the drains as metaphors functioning in the same way as traditional paintings, as a window into another world. However, the world that you enter into through the metaphor of the drain would be something darker and unknown.’
Gallery label, August 2024
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artworks in Robert Gober
Robert Gober, Dog Bed 1986–7
A dog basket is a place where a dog sleeps and dreams – possibly about subjects such as the ducks depicted on the fabric. The underside of the dog bed is dedicated ‘For Sandy, 1983–7’ – the dog of the gallerist Paula Cooper, whom Gober used to look after during the summers. The hunting imagery on the patterned fabric is hand-painted. Gober taught himself hand-weaving as a form of physical rehabilitation after he injured his hand while woodworking.
Gallery label, August 2024
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artworks in Robert Gober
Robert Gober, Drain 1989, 2006
Each object in the installation that this work forms a part of is carefully made by hand. The sheets of wallpaper are individually screen-printed, the pewter drains were hand-moulded, and the paper bag with a logo is drawn in pencil by Gober. Though the doughnuts were deep fried by the artist, he worked with the sculpture conservator Christian Scheidemann to preserve them. They are injected with a synthetic resin to ensure their longevity. When it was first shown as one of two installations in a solo exhibition at Paula Cooper Gallery in New York in the autumn of 1989, critical reviews prompted a debate about nudity and public attitudes towards sex. Elizabeth Hess, the writer for the Village Voice, concluded ‘The work is graphic but not in the least bit pornographic.’
Gallery label, August 2024
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artworks in Robert Gober
Art in this room
Robert Gober
Bag of Donuts
1989
Robert Gober
Untitled
1989–92
Robert Gober
Male and Female Genital Wallpaper
1989
Robert Gober
Untitled
2000
Robert Gober
Untitled
2000
Robert Gober
Dog Bed
1986–7
Robert Gober
Drain
1989, 2006