Robert Gober: The Heart Is Not a Metaphor

Robert Gober rose to prominence in the mid-1980s and was quickly acknowledged as one of the most significant artists of his generation. Early in his career, he made deceptively simple sculptures of everyday objects--beginning with sinks and moving on to domestic furniture such as playpens, beds and doors. In the 1990s, his practice evolved from single works to theatrical room-sized environments. In all of his work, Gober's formal intelligence is never separate from a penetrating reading of the socio-political context of his time. His objects and installations are among the most psychologically charged artworks of the late twentieth century, reflecting the artist's sustained concerns with issues of social justice, freedom and tolerance. Published in conjunction with the first large-scale survey of the artist's career to take place in the United States, this publication presents his works in all media, including individual sculptures and immersive sculptural environments, as well as a distinctive selection of drawings, prints and photographs. Prepared in close collaboration with the artist, it traces the development of a remarkable body of work, highlighting themes and motifs that emerged in the early 1980s and continue to inform Gober's work today. An essay by Hilton Als is complemented by an in-depth chronology featuring a rich selection of images from the artist's archives, including never-before-published photographs of works in progress.

Robert Gober was born in 1954 in Wallingford, Connecticut. He has had numerous one-person exhibitions, most notably at the Dia Center for the Arts, New York; The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; and Schaulager, Basel. In 2001, he represented the United States at the 49th Venice Biennale. Gober's curatorial projects have been shown at The Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston; The Menil Collection, Houston; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. He lives and works in New York.

Author: Robert Gober
Publisher: Museum of Modern Art
Published: 10/31/2014
Pages: 272
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 2.15lbs
Size: 10.00h x 6.80w x 1.10d
ISBN: 9780870709463


Award: Lambda Literary Awards - Finalist


Review Citation(s):
New York Review of Books 11/20/2014 pg. 28

About the Author

Ann Temkin is an American art curator, and currently the Marie-Josée and Henry Kravis Chief Curator of Painting and Sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Hilton Als is an American writer and theater critic who writes for The New Yorker.

Claudia Carson is archivist and registrar to Robert Gober.

Paulina Pabocha is Assistant Curator in the Department of Painting and Sculpture at The Museum of Modern Art.

Christian Scheidemann is the Senior Conservator and President of Contemporary Conservation Ltd.