The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of April 17, 2024

Untitled (1991 for Parkett 27)

Untitled (1991 for Parkett 27)

1991
Location: not on view

Did You Know?

The coffee stain on this fabricated newspaper page was in fact meticulously painted on by the artist.

Description

Robert Gober’s Untitled seems to be a real page out of the Metropolitan section of the New York Times from Thursday, October 4, 1960, but in fact it has been meticulously fabricated—by way of patched-together stories, found photographs, and invented newspaper copy—by the artist. The announcements of sunny weather, a strong market, and wedding nuptials are interspersed with alarming stories about a twelve-year-old girl held prisoner by her parents in a closet, and the drowning of a boy in a pool. The drowned child’s name is Robert Gober, and the date is the year Gober turned six. This reference to his own imagined death set within optimistic announcements of marriage and market earnings aligns with Gober’s fascination, throughout his work, with the contrasts between life’s simultaneously hopeful and horrific existence.
  • 2014
    (Parkett Publishers, New York, NY)
    2014-2020
    Stephen Dull, Shaker Heights, OH
    September 14, 2020
    The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
  • Axsom, Richard H. “What Seems to Be Isn’t: Robert Gober’s Untitled (1999)[sic]. Art in Print Vol. 5/No. 5 (Jan.-Feb. 2016) p. 36-7
  • Photographs in Ink. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (November 20, 2022-April 2, 2023).
  • {{cite web|title=Untitled (1991 for Parkett 27)|url=false|author=Robert Gober, Maurice Sanchez & Joe Petruzzelli, Derrière L'Etoile Studio, Parkett|year=1991|access-date=17 April 2024|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2020.242