1999

Untitled

American, born 1954

This unlikely juxtaposition of a sink and two left legs speaks in the ambiguous language of symbols or dreams with which the Surrealists first conjured powerful images of anxiety. Since the 1990s, Robert Gober has frequently referred to the unease of childhood by casting children’s legs, here dangling in lieu of a faucet in the sink, another of the artist’s common motifs. Gober’s use of recognizable yet fractured imagery evades the creation of a logical whole. These handcrafted works waver between the illusory and the real, revisiting strategies and images used by Marcel Duchamp (American, 1887–1968) and Jasper Johns (American, born 1930).