Robert Gober
Organized by:
The Art Institute of Chicago, and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.
Commissioners:
James Rondeau, Olga Viso
Robert Gober, the American sculptor known for his evocative transformations of domestic objects and the human forms, presented a site-specific installation composed of six independent sculptures, three prints and one photograph. Another exhibition component was his 1978–2000, a 48-page bound work of black-and-white photographic collage, published as one volume of a two-volume set available only in Venice during the Biennale.
The other volume, following traditional catalogue format, featured interpretive essays by Rondeau and Viso. The exhibition was Gober's first major site-specific installation since 1997 and his first in Italy. "His Venice installation is a richly nuanced arrangement of sculpture and graphic work in which found items are reclaimed as material evidence of our collective unconscious. At the exhibition's core is a sincere exploration of the persistent promises of democracy and the essential contradictions that attend the exercise of citizenship," commented the commissioners.