- Born:
- September 12, 1954, Wallingford, Connecticut, U.S. (age 72)
Robert Gober
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Who is Robert Gober?
Robert Gober (born in Wallingford, Connecticut, on September 12, 1954) is an American sculptor and installation artist. Gober is famous for his unique and evocative approach to everyday objects. His art often includes motifs of the human body and common household items, through which he explores themes like religion, sexuality, childhood, and change, often with a touch of humor.
Gober's notable works include sculptures and installations that mix familiar elements with the strange. His work often evokes wistful memory, exposing a stark poetry embedded within the mundane and the domestic. In 1999, he received the Skowhegan Medal for Sculpture. A major survey of his work was organized by the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 2014.
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What type of art is Robert Gober known for creating?
Robert Gober is an American sculptor and installation artist recognized for his unique approach to art. He is known for his eerie and evocative reconsiderations of everyday objects. His art often incorporates motifs of the human body and common domestic items, through which he explores themes such as religion, sexuality, childhood, and change, often with a touch of humor.
Gober gained attention in the 1980s for his haunting sculptures of household items like sinks and playpens. Later, he created sculptures and installations that mixed familiar elements with the strange, creating a sense of mystery and vulnerability.
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What materials does Robert Gober often use in his artwork?
Robert Gober is an American sculptor and installation artist famous for his eerie and evocative reconsiderations of everyday objects. His common motifs include the human body and domestic objects, with which he examined notions such as religion, sexuality, childhood, and change.
After a brief period as a painter, Gober drew notice in the 1980s with a series of haunting sculptures loosely based on the forms of household items such as sinks, drains, and playpens. Gober carried those ideas further in sculptures and installations that commingled the familiar with the strange, such as a realistic sculpture of the lower part of a man’s leg isolated as if it was emerging from or disappearing into a wall.
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Why are sinks and body parts common themes in Gober's sculptures?
Robert Gober is an American sculptor and installation artist known for his eerie and evocative reconsiderations of everyday objects. His sculptures often include common motifs, such as the human body and domestic objects, with which he examined notions like religion, sexuality, childhood, and change, often with humor.
Gober drew notice in the 1980s with a series of haunting sculptures loosely based on household items such as sinks and drains. By the end of the 1980s, as part of a trend toward "abject art," Gober produced uncanny wax sculptures of male body parts.
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How does Robert Gober's art explore topics like identity and society?
Robert Gober, born September 12, 1954, is an American sculptor and installation artist. He is known for his eerie and evocative reconsiderations of everyday objects. His common motifs included the human body and domestic objects, with which he examined notions such as religion, sexuality, childhood, and change, often with humor.
Gober's sculptures and installations often mix familiar elements with the strange. His work often eludes simple interpretation, but the air of mystery and sense of vulnerability exposes his central concerns and has made his enigmatic objects popular throughout the art world.
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What impact has Robert Gober had on contemporary American art?
Robert Gober is an American sculptor and installation artist who emerged in the 1980s and is known for his unique approach to everyday objects. Gober's art often incorporates themes of religion, sexuality, childhood, and change, using common motifs such as the human body and domestic objects.
Gober's sculptures and installations often combine familiar elements with the strange, creating an air of mystery and vulnerability. His work includes sculptures of household items like sinks and playpens, altered in scale and function to evoke memory and expose the stark poetry within the mundane. His enigmatic objects have made him a popular figure in the art world, with his work being featured in major museums and exhibitions.
1 Britannica SourceCreated from Britannica articles using AI. AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles.
Robert Gober (born September 12, 1954, Wallingford, Connecticut, U.S.) is an American sculptor and installation artist known for his eerie and evocative reconsiderations of everyday objects. His common motifs included the human body and domestic objects, with which he examined, often with humor, such notions as religion, sexuality, childhood, and change.
Gober studied at Middlebury College (1972–76), spending his junior year abroad at the Tyler School in Rome, before settling in New York City. After a brief period as a painter, he drew notice in the 1980s with a series of haunting sculptures loosely based on the forms of household items such as sinks, drains, and playpens. Nonfunctional and often altered in scale from their sources—Open Playpen (1987), for example, lacks the protective bars on one side, while X Playpen (1987) effectively reduces the “play” area to one of two tiny triangular spaces—those sculptures seemed exercises in wistful memory, exposing a stark poetry embedded within the mundane and the domestic.
Gober carried those ideas further in sculptures and installations that commingled the familiar with the strange. Untitled (1990), in the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, is a realistic sculpture of the lower part of a man’s leg, isolated as if it was emerging from or disappearing into a wall. Replete with shoe, sock, a bit of pants leg, and an area of hairy skin exposed, the sculpture suggests at once both masculine presence and its disempowerment. At first glance Gober’s Untitled (1997), in the Milwaukee Art Museum, seems to be simply an open suitcase on the floor. Upon further examination, however, the bottom of the suitcase opens to a small installation beneath the museum floor featuring seaweed, coins, running water, and a sculpture of the legs of both an adult and a child. Such installations eluded simple interpretation, but their air of mystery and sense of vulnerability exposed was central to Gober’s concerns and made his enigmatic objects popular attractions throughout the art world.
In 1999 Gober was awarded the Skowhegan Medal for Sculpture by the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine. He participated in the 2001 Venice Biennale and was the subject of a retrospective in 2007 at the Schaulager Museum in Basel, Switzerland. In 2014 the Museum of Modern Art in New York organized a major survey of his work (“Robert Gober: The Heart Is Not a Metaphor”), the first of its kind in the United States. Gober’s works reside in the collections of not only the Hirshhorn and the Milwaukee Art Museum, but the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City; the Art Institute of Chicago; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; and Tate Modern, London.