“Untitled”, Robert Gober
Robert Gober has shown in his art that so much of our modern world in pandemic looks like the restless homeworld. For the first time, he was recognized in the mid-1980s for statues of washbasins, regularly with two holes in the area where the crane should go. We can assume that he has penetrated into the dull surfaces of minimalism, giving them hints of the human body and creating extraordinary problems of hygiene and handwashing for the main part of modern art.
“Cat Litter” (1989), Robert Gober
The Matthew Marks Gallery, of NY and LA, is now showing its first online exhibition (until June 10), a collection of 20 compositions. Some of his figures consist of exact replicas of the shop’s items: a 25-pound back with a cat’s litter box or Table Talk apple pie, whose cardboard display case is decorated with a 69-cent fluorescent sticker.
“Untitled”, Robert Gober
The parents’ house, as determined by the artist, is also a place where everything goes severely wrong. He is famously known for his figures of a lopped-off mature man leg extending out from a wall, dismembered but still prepared for job.
“Death Mask”, Robert Gober
The display at Matthew Marks starts dramatically, with “Death Mask” (2008), a white cement ellipse that spreads the screen, placing your face to face with what seems like a friendly arctic bear. It has shrilled blue eyes, outlined in pencil, and a little drawn red lip. A reference provides background message: Gober composed the art after he lost his dog. “Death Mask” is a mixed dual representation, mixing the artist’s face with the muzzle of his dog.
“Untitled”, Robert Gober
Illustrations and photos, with their two-dimensionality, are less exposed to digital deformity. The first picture here, an untitled black-and-white image from 1976, is an exciting time. Hippie-manner linen, decorated and crumpled, shows in close-up, with an album of photos by Diane Arbus holding on the line, and a little plate containing the remains of a part of the watermelon.
“Untitled”, Robert Gober
This picture refers to a collection of paintings in graphite and pastel on parchment first presented in “Tick Tock” at Matthew Marks Gallery. Evenly mysterious and personal, each image features various symbols of Gober’s work: a node of trees, a human body without a head, and a light of blue sky into a prison window.
