Robert Gober
Last One
Robert Gober, Last One, 2021
Graphite, colored pencil, pastel, collaged paper on found drawing, 17.5 × 21.3 cm, Emanuel Hoffmann Foundation, on permanent loan to the Öffentliche Kunstsammlung Basel, photo: Tom Bisig, Basel, © Robert Gober
The naked foot was a piece Gober found in an anonymous anatomy sketchbook that he acquired at auction, with drawings supposedly dating from 1885. The artist supplemented the anonymous, slightly clumsy sketch: a small, barred window affords a view of the pinkish blue skies of twilight or dawn. The barred window is a recurring feature of Gober’s iconography. Here it appears on a foot standing on tiptoe – a clash between two obviously mismatched motifs. One is reminded of Comte de Lautréamont (1846–1870), who anticipated the spirit of surrealism when he spoke of the “chance encounter between a sewing machine and an umbrella on a dissecting table.” The collision between different realities produces new visions and inner images. Gober’s collage reads somewhat like a riddle: solutions could be ankle bracelet, attempted escape, or getaway.
Robert Gober (b.1954, Wallingford, Connecticut, USA) has created an oeuvre that touches on socially sensitive issues such as sexuality, religion, and power since the 1970s. In staging his work, Gober’s art of isolation and imitation invests even the most ordinary objects – a sink or a dog bed – with several, often disconcerting layers of meaning. The essence of his work always rests on the act of making it. Robert Gober lives and works in New York.