Jack Pierot in conversation with Robert Gober at the Museum of Modern Art in New York city during Gober's retrospective spanning some 40 years of art making titled  The Heart is Not a Metaphor.

Jack Pierot:  I would like to congratulate you on the occasion of a thoroughly intriguing and consecrated exhibition of your work.

Robert Gober:  Thank you Jack.

JP: How long has it been since we have last spoken?

RG: I think it was at Marianne Boesky’s after Donald’s most recent exhibition.

 JP: Yes, that’s right. My memory is becoming shit. I know that I was most pleased with myself because I finally pried that jewel of a drawing from you. I must thank you for that.

RG: You’re welcome. It was a Monument Valley receipt?

JP: That work has become very important to me. I like to keep it near my bed so that is it the first thing that I see when I wake. It is my return ticket from slumber, framing my day to be as a hallucination.

RG: (Laughs) A return ticket?

JP: Can you tell me how it was you came to this create this enchanted item?

RG: It’s hard to talk about how I came to any certain conclusion to make an artwork. I don’t want to take away any of the magic. I don’t want the work to become disenchanted in some way. When it leaves my studio it carries on a life of its own. I become less attached as to why I made it than to how it’s read by the viewer.

JP: It is truly enchanted and special. It becomes an earnest speculation of mine that you are a sort of magician.

RG: Yes, it is funny to think of an artist in that way. I don’t quite know what to say to that, but it doesn’t surprise me to hear it coming from you. You tend to wander through the supernatural.

JP: Please consider it though; Illusion, showmanship, the audience is suspending there disbelief in the fantasy of the situation.

RG: That is something to consider. It may be too romantic a notion for me.

JP: There is no certified school, that I know of, to practice magic as there is with art. Did you learn it perhaps from a caravan along the road?

RG: I went to Middlebury College in Vermont which is not at all like being abducted by gypsies. Maybe I would have been better off.

JP: Is this an artist’s college?

RG: It’s a liberal arts college which, in all seriousness, has served me well. I believe an artist would be served best by a general education. On the other hand, when in a foreign country, you can make your stay more enjoyable if you learn to speak a little of the language. 

JP: Do you have any regrets about this choice?

RG: I’ve often imagined divergent paths based on the choices I have made in my life. What if I went to a school like Cal Arts for example? It may not have mattered at all. I am curious about where you went to school.

JP: My school was the Rivera. I found all of my knowledge in the Mediterranean washing up around my ankles. Osmosis, that is how I was educated. My family did not care much for my choice of lifestyle but I was supported at least.

RG: It is hard for me to imagine you as a student. You don’t easily fit into a mold from what I know of you.

JP: I was a terribly difficult student. I was ejected from many schools but it was for the best. Creativity and ingenuity are occasionally championed as long as they fit into the framework of the program. The underlying purpose of such institutions is to crush the free spirit and press the student into the gang of civil society, despite outward appearances.

RG: (Laughs) Civil society being something you have no interest in.

JP: My life would most definitely be better without it.

RG: Probably mine as well but it does serve as a reliable constant to work with.

JP: I must say that this subject is rife for you. You are an insubordinate, but quietly so. Often your work appears to me as an entirely ordinary situation at first. As I examine more closely it begins to undermine this mask of civility.

RG: That was the ethos of the times when I first began this. In my formative years I was excited about breaking with the social norm.

JP: As a contradiction to this point, you are very careful as well. That is the poetry in you work. You are a sandman leaving us to question our perception of reality.  To find your work in any environment other than a gallery it is possible that one may not notice it as treasure.

RG: I think that is a fine line and an interesting place to inhabit. I have spent a lot of time there especially in some of my earlier works.

JP: Do you have an apprentice to help you in your studio?

RG: I have assistants but I don’t know how they would feel about the word apprentice

JP: Though, you would not say it is collaboration?

RG: Yes, that would not be fair. In my defense I do try to impart knowledge occasionally, but the thought makes me feel a bit arrogant. I would like to stay away from that. My work is time intensive and I require assistance if I am going to keep up with the rate at which I would like to create.

JP: Have you ever been an apprentice?

RG: I worked for Elizabeth Murray when I was first starting out. I did not consider it an apprenticeship. Though, I learned a great deal despite our different approaches to making art.

JP: She was a magnificent artist. As a final say, what is art for you?

RG: Let me preface this by stating that I am an agnostic. I believe that art is a supplement for religion and is, for better or worse, my Catholicism.

JP: This is in keeping with your work. As for me, Duchamp described it best. He said that art is a habit forming drug. Personally, I can think of no better definition.



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