Robert Gober - Contemporary Art Evening Sale New York Thursday, May 10, 2012 | Phillips

Create your first list.

Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.

  • Provenance

    Paula Cooper Gallery, New York

  • Exhibited

    New York, Barbara Gladstone Gallery, Exhibition to Benefit the Robert Mapplethorpe laboratory for AIDS Research New England Deaconess Hospital, January 10 – January 20,1993 (another example exhibited
    )Bignan, Domain de Kerguéhennec, De la mainà la tête, l’objet théoretique, May 1 – September 19, 1993 (another example exhibited)
    Frankfurt am Main, Museum für Moderne Kunst, Szenenweschel V/Change of Scene V, January 28 – May 15, 1994 (another example exhibited)
    Milan, Claudia Gian Ferrari Arte Contemporanea, Nudo & crudo: corpo sensibile, corpo visibile, January 25 – March 16, 1996 (another example exhibited)
    New York, Whitney Museum of American Art, Views From Abroad: European Perspectives on American Art 2, October 18, 1996 – January 5, 1997 (another example exhibited)
    Frankfurt am Main, Museum für Moderne Kunst, Die Entdeckung des Anderen: Ein Europäischer Blick auf die Amerikanische Kunst 2, January 31 – May 4, 1997 (another example exhibited)
    New York, Museum of Modern Art, On the Edge: Contemporary Art from the Werner & Elaine Danheisser Collection, September 30, 1997 – January 20, 1998 (another example exhibited)
    Hamburg, Deichtorhallen Hamburg, Emotion – Junge Britische und Amerikanische Kunst aus der Sammlung Goetz/Young British and American Art from the Goetz Collection, October 30 1998 – January 17, 1999 (another example exhibited)
    Bordeaux, capc-Musée d’art contemporain de Bordeaux, Présuméinnocents, l’art contemporain et l’enfance/Presumed innocent, Contemporary Art and Childhood, June 8 –October 1, 2000 (another example exhibited)
    St. Gallen, Sammlung Hauser und Wirth in der Lokremise St. Gallen, The Oldest Possible Memory, May 14 – October 15, 2000 (another example exhibited)
    New York, The Museum of Modern Art, Open Ends: Innocence and Experience, September 28, 2000 – January 2, 2001 (another example exhibited)
    Frankfurt am Main, Museum für Moderne Kunst, Szenenweschel XVIII/Change of Scene XVIII, September 29, 2000 – March 4, 2001 (another example exhibited)
    Santa Fe, The Fifth International Biennial Exhibition, SITE Santa Fe, Disparities and Deformations: Our Grotesque, July 18, 2004 – January 2005 (another example exhibited)
    Santander, Fundación Marcelino Botín, Blancanieves y los siete enanitos: una exposición sobre la presencia delblanco acompañado de un poco de rojo y una pizca de negro/Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs: an exhibition on the presence of white accompanied by some red and a little black, April 28 – June 26, 2005 (another example exhibited)
    Frankfurt am Main, Museum für Moderne Kunst, Spinning the web. The Ebay-Connection, September 24, 2005 – January 9, 2006 (another example exhibited)
    Southampton, The Parrish Art Museum, All the More Real, August 12 – October 24, 2007 (another example exhibited)

  • Literature

    M. Kramer, To Fix the Image in Memory/Dem Bild Einen festen Platz im Gedächtnis verleihen, New York/Frankfurt, 1996, pp. 137 -160 (another example illustrated)
    E. Meyer-Hermann, Reservoir, St. Gallen, Switzerland, 2000, pp. 2-9 (another example illustrated)
    J. Ammann, “Von der Schwerkraft der Skulptor”, Katharina Fritsch, Robert Gober, Frankfurt, 2001, pp. 9–10 (another example illustrated)
    M. Kramer, “Robert Gobers Drain Man –Eine Werkbetrachtung”, Für Jean-Christophe Ammann, Festschrift, Frankfurt, 2001, pp. 216-219 (another example illustrated)
    H. Schwebel, “Katharina Fritsch und Robert Gober”, Katharina Fritsch, Robert Gober, Frankfurt, pp. 11-13 (another example illustrated)
    M. Schneede, Mit Haut und Haaren. Der Körper in der seitgenössischen Kunst, Cologne, 2002 (another example illustrated)
    R. Storr, Prière de (ne pas) toucher, Paris, 1995, pp. 330-337 (another example illustrated)
    T. Vischer, Robert Gober: Sculptures and Installations 1979 -2007, Basel, 2007, p. 337 (another example illustrated)

  • Catalogue Essay

    Deeply moved and inspired by the theatricality of his Catholic upbringing, Robert Gober took note of the visceral language and body imagery in the ecstasy and suffering entrenched in the tradition. As an artist, he metabolizes this symbolic system. Through sculpture and installation, he creates a new reality, one infused with the psycho sexual dramas of surrealism. As seen in Untitled, 1992, a child’s small shoe has been rendered out of beeswax. The fragile medium confronts a daily risk of destruction; yet, the soft and supple ingredient can be melted and reimagined. The smooth surface both thrills and excites as we imagine slipping a foot inside the vacant shoe. But before we give in to temptation, the makeup of the shoe’s sole becomes apparent; tiny follicles of human hair grow from within.

    In Untitled, 1992, the quotidian and transient is transformed into a surrogate figure. The item is no longer an article of clothing, but a living and perverse beast, comprised of viscous wax and human hair. The shoe is sweetly girlish, yet the coarse hair that grows within is adult and masculine. Something about the object suggests both an awful accident, as well as a traumatic fantasy. Untitled, 1992 is a poignant and unsettling allegory of the fleeting nature of childhood. “Somewhere there’s a little girl without a shoe. Well, it probably came out of the garbage. Somebody had probably thrown two away, and they got scattered – rather than some little girl being swept off her feet so that the shoe was left behind. It was a symbol of loss to me.” (Robert Gober in an interview with Richard Flood, “Interview 3: January 23-24, 1997,” Robert Gober: Sculpture and Drawing, Minneapolis, Walker Art Center, 1999, p. 133).

38

Untitled

1992
wax and human hair
3 x 7 1/2 x 2 5/8 in. (7.6 x 19.1 x 6.7 cm)
Signed, numbered, and dated “R. Gober, ’92, 6/15” on the underside. This work is number six from an edition of 15 plus three artist’s proofs.

Estimate
$250,000 - 350,000 

Contemporary Art Evening Sale

10 May 2012
New York