ticketsMember | Make a donation

Untitled

Robert Gober American
1990
Not on view
Returned to lender
This work of art was on loan to the museum and has since been returned to its lender.
The human torso is defined through a pair of male and female breasts grafted onto an organic mass that took its form from a bag of plaster found in the artist’s studio. Incorporating the fleshiness of wax, real hair, and pigmented nipples, this sack attains an uncanny resemblance to human flesh. It pays ironic homage to the notion of a pound of flesh, while at the height of the AIDS epidemic, it more darkly alluded to the object-like condition of the body and the frailty of its parts.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Untitled
  • Artist: Robert Gober (American, born Wallingford, Connecticut, 1954)
  • Date: 1990
  • Medium: Beeswax, human hair, pigment
  • Dimensions: 24 1/4 × 17 × 11 in., 85 lb. (61.6 × 43.2 × 27.9 cm, 38.6 kg)
  • Classification: Sculpture
  • Credit Line: Courtesy of the artist and Matthew Marks Gallery
  • Curatorial Department: Modern and Contemporary Art