Robert Gober

I have no talent for poetic titles. I tried. I envy artists who do, like de Kooning’s Door to the River (1960); could there be a more beautiful and evocative title? I tend to say Untitled or use a simple descriptive title. I know it’s annoying to people and that it creates a vacuum when you “untitle” things, but if I have no interesting information to add with a title then why do it?

-Robert Gober

[Gober’s 1992-1993 show at New York’s Dia Center for the Arts] was one of the best I’ve seen in my entire life. It had prison bars on the windows and his hand-painted wallpaper forest. This surreal jumble of images was poignant and deep, representing to me a great sense of loss. Half the people we knew died [of AIDS]. Half. Can you imagine? It was like a war.

-Marilyn Minter, artist