Robert Gober's Postmodern Installations at MOMA

Modernism and Its Transformation

To fully appreciate the art of Robert Gober, it is necessary to have at least a rudimentary grasp of the terms modernism and postmodernism. The term modernism is cast variously by the disciplines that frame and articulate it. Generally, modernism is considered a philosophical movement spun from the Age of Enlightenment, even though modernism would come to reject the religious underpinnings of Enlightenment thinking. Tremendously influential changes in the late 19th and 20th centuries transformed cultures and societies as they absorbed and redefined new ways of thinking.

Industrialization was a catalyst for the rapid and extensive growth of cities, and the subsequent horrors of the World Wars. Where once there had been certitude, nihilistic thinking eroded convention, irreversibly impacting art, architecture, literature, philosophy, religion, science, and social organization. Convention no longer seemed to fit with the emerging industrialized existences that people found themselves living, and the gap was bridged through self-reference and self-consciousness: artists experimented with the very techniques, processes, and materials that were once the building blocks of traditional art, such as realism. This new self-consciousness of and in the process of creating art was transformational, and it echoed the progressive thought that was leading to experimentation in knowledge and technology. Human beings, as generative forces who could improve and shape the context of their existence, were free to examine every part of their lives. There was a tacit agreement to locate and replace everything that appeared to be a barrier to progress.

The Rise of Postmodern Art

The force of commercialism and the development of an elitist modernism radically changed the meaning of modernism in Western culture. In a smoothing process that is as familiar as the "boomerization" of the hippies, the modernist movement took on the baggage of convention: from a position of rejecting tradition, modernism matured to develop its own tradition. As with many revolutionary movements, the trappings of convention soon de-radicalized it, and the movement became post-avant-garde. Rather than characterizing postmodernism as an entirely new art movement, art critic Robert Hughes claimed that postmodernism is an extension of modernism. Regardless, it can be said that postmodern art is a counterpart to modernism — or the culture that followed on the heels of modernism — and is intended to contradict it in a substantive way. A number of art movements are considered to be postmodern, with perhaps the most commonly known represented by conceptual art, installation art, intermedia, and multimedia.

Conceptual, Installation, Intermedia, and Multimedia Art

Conceptual art is scripted, in a way, with the concept of the art developed in advance of and driving the articulation of the aesthetic. That is to say, conceptual art is designed to convey a particular idea or concept — the primary concern of the artist — while the materials used to convey the idea, or the arrangement the artist settles on to illustrate the concept, are lesser concerns. Conceptual art is sometimes referred to as installation art, but they are separate movements. Installation art is three-dimensional art that is set up in an indoor or outdoor space with the idea of transforming the perception of space through the use of evocative materials. Installation art may be specific to a particular site and may be either a temporary or permanent fixture in that space only. The total and immersive experience is essential to installation art.

Intermedia art exists at the nexus of the boundaries of conventional media and media that was previously not considered to be a component of art. Perhaps the most notable example of intermedia is the use of the computer in art; however, simpler versions of intermedia can be seen where artists have combined conventional art media with poetry or film to produce cross-disciplinary art. The use of video in art is a particular hallmark of the postmodern art movement known as multimedia, a category that is subsumed within intermedia. Multimedia art utilizes electronic devices that process information content in forms otherwise recognizable as animation, audio, interactivity, still images, text, or video.

Robert Gober and the MOMA Exhibition

In the MOMA exhibition Robert Gober: The Heart Is Not a Metaphor, two works particularly resonated. Both installations were associated with highly significant social events in contemporary history, which imbued the work with an inescapable relevancy.

The Sink Sculptures and the AIDS Epidemic

One installation contains three sinks fashioned to look like enamel, but none of the sinks have faucets and none are attached to any structure that might resemble plumbing. Gober created a series of sink sculptures — more than 50 sculptures or drawings of sinks — between 1983 and 1986, during the early years of the AIDS epidemic. Art critics commented that the useless, non-functional sinks underscored the impossibility of cleansing oneself from the deadly virus. The sculptures featured in the first image were shown at the Daniel Weinberg Gallery in Los Angeles in 1985, at what was the first exhibition of Gober's sinks. While Gober could well have taken an appropriation art approach to the concept, his sinks were constructed of wood, plaster, wire lathe, and paint to resemble the ubiquitous white enamel sinks still prevalent in fixture lines today.

References

Hughes, Robert. The Shock of the New: Art and the Century of Change. London: Gardners Books, 1991.

Sheleg, Bambi. "Gaining Clarity: After Postmodernism." Eretz Acheret Magazine. 12 October 2009. Accessed 23 November 2014.