Untitled (2000) Lithograph and screenprint on paper
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. — Robert Gober
Robert Gober Untitled Leg, 1989-1990 Beeswax, cotton, wood, leather, human hair
“Gober has always been a political artist, and his breakthrough work in the 1980s and early 1990s was lauded partly for its ability to address divisive social issues such as AIDS, gay identity and religion in America. Using a limited repertoire of straightforward representational sculptures and drawings that were indebted in various measures to Marcel Duchamp, Surrealism and Minimalism, he developed a uniquely provocative idiom of religion, politics, sexuality, mortality and memory: a visual language that sometimes sparked public outrage. The irony of Gober’s now celebrated status is that the controversial nature of his work – still graphic and demanding – has been dulled somewhat by its canonical status…” - Katie Stone, for Frieze Magazine