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Lebogang Tlhako

IN MEMORIAM

Robert GoberB. 1954

UNTITLED

signed, dated 1993 and dedicated For Dave Hickey on the underside

watercolor on vellum and pigmented beeswax

1 1/8 by 4 3/4 by 1 1/8 in. 2.9 by 12 by 2.9 cm.

This work is a unique maquette for a larger work executed in 1993-94.

Gober appropriates neither norms nor forms from the straight world, but replaces them, literally constructs them all -- the sinks, the plywood sheets, the newspapers, bringing nothing 'readymade' across the abyss of difference. Reincarnating these artifacts as extensions of his own true nature, he colonizes the straight world with them--so that, finally, if nothing else in the world of false facture confirms Gober's presence in it, these objects do. Dave Hickey (Exh. Cat., Robert Gober, Los Angeles, The Museum of Contemporary Art, 1997, p. 54)

Dave Hickey is one of the best known American art and cultural critics practicing today. He has written for many major American publications including Rolling Stone, Art News, Art in America, Artforum, Harper's Magazine, and Vanity Fair. He is currently Professor of English at the University of Nevada Las Vegas. Known for his arguments against academicism and in favor of the effects of rough-and-tumble free markets on art, his critical essays have been published in two volumes: The Invisible Dragon: Four Essays on Beauty and Air Guitar: Essays on Art and Democracy (1997). Through his writing and lecturing, Dave Hickey has gained a substantial international reputation. He has been the subject of profiles in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, U.S. News and World Report, Texas Monthly, and elsewhere. He was the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, the so-called "genius grant."