Justin Rosa

Art History 318

Professor Egan
April 25, 2014

An Art of Missing Parts
In An Art of Missing Parts, Hal Foster psychoanalyzes the artwork of Robert Gober. Foster
examines the role of psychoanalytic theory in relation to Gobers work. He also explores the theme of
trauma. Foster posits that Gober's work does not provide any answers and solely generates questions.
The main role of the work is to sustain confusion. These artworks become cryptic memories and
dream-like experiences born of Gobers life and placed into the viewers psyche. Handcrafted,
hyperrealistic pieces such as sinks, severed body parts, and pipes transform harmless objects into
elements of a primal fantasy with an unconscious whole that is constantly processing childhood and
sexuality. Placed in odd diorama-like settings, these artworks create dream-like disruptances in which
the elements of the bodies evoke recollections of an individual's past experiences. Society has a deep
interest in the real or what may appear to be and what is intimate and private.
Foster relies on Lacan's theory of the traumatic on his venture to interpret Gober's hyperrealist
art. Many contemporary artists may appropriate the perspective that it is possible to say something
about reality, but the reality they want to show is traumatic and rather a challenge to render. One way
to demonstrate traumatic events is to show them repetitively. To successfully accomplish this, artists
use techniques of repetition and duplication. Gober uses an appropriation strategy adopted from pop art
to desensitize our perception of ordinary objects. Presenting experiences or feelings multiple times
challenges the real. A significant artwork is the handmade Pitched Crib. Although a distortion of an
ordinary object, viewers are left with confusion due to the level of banality. Living in a modern society,
many individuals have inhabited cribs as infants. While not direct, solely existing as an enigmatic
signifier, viewing the distorted crib would not automatically force one to see the object potentially as
their first traumatic experience. What was to be of safety merely resides in the subconscious as a
symbol of loss. Foster describes Gobers dioramas as containing an aesthetic of wish-fulfillment and
the missing to be fulfilled will continue to remain a mystery so that the works themselves can continue
to evoke confusion and discomfort.
While many crave to experience the intimate and private, Gober opens himself to his viewer by
displaying his personal experiences in the artwork. Subconsciously we empathize as we may have
experienced similar events, but struggle with actually realizing why the pieces feel so familiar. Foster
discusses desire and loss as they are the main factors in trauma. Naturally, humans desire what they lost
which can lead to fantasy. Fantasy simply acts as a form of security from the trauma that was
experienced. Foster utilizes a complexed method of interpreting the work of Gober, but delivers an
array of interesting notions. As many suffer from desire in loss, Foster pushes that viewers of Gober's
work experience trauma. In experiencing the traumatic, an individual can feel a sense of nostalgia; a
yearning to revisit past events. Foster reveals how one might become fixated with a particular instance
in hope of identifying the very thing that could never be presented. Foster insists that Gober's works are
not representations, but repetitions of the traumatic.