Short Haired Cheese
As with so many of Gober’s classic works of the 1990s, the artist began by researching the archetypal forms of his chosen subject, landing here on an unmistakable, yellow-tinged wedge replete with air-bubble holes. The hair that appears to grow out of the rind (trimmings from one of his studio assistants) adds a haunting, anthropomorphic cast. Throughout this artist’s work, impeccably rendered objects associated with a nostalgic, mid-twentieth-century domesticity—comestibles such as butter, gin, or donuts, or home-maintenance products like house paint, light bulbs, or rat poison—are made strange, even unsettlingly queasy, through the artist’s distinctive interventions and allusions to a body in pieces.
Artwork Details
- Title: Short Haired Cheese
- Artist: Robert Gober (American, born Wallingford, Connecticut, 1954)
- Date: 1992–93
- Medium: Beeswax, human hair
- Dimensions: 4 × 6 1/4 × 6 1/2 in. (10.2 × 15.9 × 16.5 cm)
- Classification: Sculpture
- Credit Line: Aaron I. Fleischman Collection, Gift of Aaron I. Fleischman, and Purchase, Aaron I. Fleischman Gift, in honor of the Museum’s 150th Anniversary, 2020
- Object Number: 2020.257
- Curatorial Department: Modern and Contemporary Art
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Robert Gober
1949–2001
Robert Gober
2002
Robert Gober
1985
Robert Gober
1977, printed 1994
Robert Gober
2000–2001
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